Monday 12 January 2009

How to find water, oil or gas

This Earthlearningidea activity is about permeability of rocks. Ask your pupils to collect some local rock samples of similar size and put them all into a container of water. Watch for bubbles. The 'bubbly' rocks have spaces between the grains that air and water can flow through - so they are permeable (liquids and gases flow through permeable things). If these 'bubbly' rocks can hold water, then they can hold oil and gas too.
After carrying out this activity, your pupils will be able to test rock permeability and put rocks in order of permeability. They will be able to make 2D and 3D models to show different sorts of permeability/impermeability and explain why some impermeable rocks are impermeable. Hopefully they will also be able to tell you where to drill for water, oil or gas!
Please let us know how they get on by writing your comments on this blog.

2 comments:

Mary from New Mexico said...

Nice, neat simple activity. I will also use the models developed in this activity when I introduce rocks, probably as a follow up to the 'Rock Detective' activity.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this nice info, it's so useful for me.

regards,
Pertamina