From August 10 -14, 33 K-12 teachers studied in the jointly produced five day workshop, "Oil and the Contemporary Globe: A Multi-Regional, Multi-Study of the Modern World's Foundation." Three outreach education offices from National Resource Centers at Harvard (the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies) planned and implemented the program, along with a committed group of eight-teacher co-leaders. 

The workshop focused on examining the place and importance of oil in three regional settings and started with a broad discussion with activities on energy, narrowing in focus after that.  The participants were multi-disciplinary and taught history, social studies, chemistry and biology among other areas. A highlight of the workshop was the use of jig-sawed reading groups, where participants read articles and shared their findings with their colleagues and the use of afternoon lesson planning and discussion sessions, which highlighted the unique work of some of the planning committee. 

Throughout the workshop, participants considered how content and tools for teaching about it, such as Google Earth, could be used effectively in the classroom.  For information on using Google Earth in the classroom and to explore the created Google Earth program from the Oil workshop, see the materials prepared by Jeff Blossom at the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University. 

To view some of the powerpoints from the workshop, see the main course webpage.