Shale Show for Kids Gets A Little Flack in Preview
A new traveling show for kids gives them a lively look at gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale, and a sense of what organizers describe as the power of fossil fuels. It's sponsored by industry powerhouse EQT. The show is intended for audiences around Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. It was first on display at the Carnegie Science Center this week. And it immediately got the thumbs down by a writer of the local alternative newsweekly. The Allegheny Front's Dennis Funk mixed it up with a bunch of fifth-graders at the show and also considered the criticism.
Transcript
OPEN: A new traveling show for kids gives them a lively look at gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale, and a sense of what organizers describe as the power of fossil fuels. It's sponsored by industry powerhouse EQT. The show is intended for audiences around Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. It was first on display at the Carnegie Science Center this week. And it immediately got the thumbs down by a writer of the local alternative newsweekly. The Allegheny Front's Dennis Funk mixed it up with a bunch of fifth-graders at the show and also considered the criticism.
HENNESSY: We're gonna try to harness the power of natural gas today and to do that we're going to meet some scientists from EQT. Everyone say ëHi, scientists.í
CROWD OF KIDS: Hi, scientists.
SCIENTIST: Welcome to Geovation Station...
FUNK: Colossal Fossil Fuels is the new program from the Carnegie Science Center and EQT designed to get kids thinking about where the energy we use to cook our food and light our homes comes from. It takes students on a journey through Earthís history ó showing them the prehistoric origins of natural gas and other fossil fuels with a smattering of experiments and explosions along the way.
The show also introduces kids to methods of obtaining fossil fuels.
EQT ENGINEERS: Commence hydraulic fracturing. We're freeing the trapped natural gas which is rising to the surface. We injected water and thousands of gallons are returning through the well to the surface. Let's recycle it over and over to extract more methane. And when weíre done we can purify the water with different treatment methods and use it at the next well. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.
FUNK: What the show doesn't do is cover the controversy over hydraulic fracturing. That made Bill O'Driscoll, and editor and writer with the Pittsburgh City Paper, suggest that the show was more politics than science. O'Driscoll saw the preview and wrote a review of the program in the paper's blog, Slag Heap.
O'DRISCOLL: It feels very much like it could be part of this great push by the gas industry to become sort of this friendly face to tell people how they're all about jobs and energy independence for people. The science is framed as 'Hey, thereís natural gas down there. Let's go get it. How do we do that?' Itís never framed as 'What kind of risks can this pose?'
FUNK: Though the show is designed around using and extracting natural gas, Steve Schlotterbeck, EQT's president of production, says that the show is not meant to be pro-industry.
SCHLOTTERBECK: I don't think that the goal here is to really portray one industry as better than another, or that natural gas is the only future fuel for this country. I think we've tried to stay away from that and focus more on the earth sciences.
FUNK: The Science Center says that Colossal Fossil Fuels begins touring in April and will be full steam ahead this September. The Science on The Road program, which Colossal Fossil Fuels is part of, reached more than 200-thousand students last year.
For The Allegheny Front, I'm Dennis Funk.