Durant teachers fueled up on free supplies recently while attending energy education workshops hosted by the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board.

According to OERB, the workshops will help them energize their students’ knowledge about the oil and natural gas industry.

The OERB is in its 17th year of offering these free workshops. The workshop offered educators the opportunity to enhance their understanding of the petroleum industry and receive training to teach OERB’s hands-on curricula in their classroom. The OERB provides a Little Bits program for kindergarten through second grades, Fossils to Fuel program for elementary students, a Petro Active program for middle schools students and CORE Energy, a novel energy education curriculum for students in grades nine through 12.

“We brought teachers and petroleum industry professionals together to write these curricula because wanted to make sure we were providing Oklahoma students with in-depth information that is not provided in any other textbooks,” OERB Education Director Carla Schaeperkoetter, said, in a news release. “Our workshops allow teachers to perform the experiments in the curriculum, then leave with a teacher’s guide and all the materials they need to teach these programs in their classrooms.”

After each class completes the curriculum, students receive a free field trip from the OERB to various museums with exciting energy exhibits. The kit of materials, training and teacher’s guide are all provided free of charge. Teachers also receive a substitute reimbursement.

“Very professional materials and great instructions,” said Deanna Bunch. “The OERB curricula will benefit my students by providing them with details about Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas industry.”

Other teachers in attendance were: William Hoffman and Susan Hall.

The OERB also provides a safety video to warn children of the dangers of playing around well sites. Teachers can also request a Petro Pro – an industry professional who volunteers to give an in-class presentation about their job and the industry.

These programs, funded voluntarily by Oklahoma’s oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners, have been instrumental in educating more than one million students across the state about the oil and natural gas industry. The OERB has also trained more than 10,000 Oklahoma teachers in the curricula.

The OERB was created in 1993 by the Oklahoma Legislature and is funded through a voluntary one tenth of 1 percent assessment on oil and natural gas producers and royalty owners. The agency’s purpose is to conduct environmental restoration of abandoned well sites and to educate Oklahomans about the importance of the petroleum industry. Teachers can register for OERB workshops online at www.oerb.com.