Increased energy efficiency and reduced reliance on fossil fuels are both essential if people are to have any chance of avoiding escalating energy prices and the grim reality of catastrophic climate change. By increasing the diversity of energy sources people can also achieve increased security, reducing their dependence on imports. As…

This article examines approaches to environmental education in Bhopal, India. It is an attempt to understand how much environmental education as a topic has been incorporated into formal curricula. An analysis of state and national syllabi indicates a focus on conventional, natural sciences approaches to the environment, thus neglecting the social…

Indigenous peoples and other rural or remote populations often bear the social and environmental cost of extractive industries while obtaining little of the wealth they generate. Recent developments including national and international recognition of Indigenous rights, and the growth of "corporate social responsibility" initiatives among…

Poor community-company relations in the Niger Delta have drawn attention to the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the region. Since the 1960s, transnational oil corporations operating in the Niger Delta have adopted various CSR strategies, yet community-company relations remain adversarial. This article examines community…

Microorganisms can be used to produce a variety of chemicals such as drugs, enzymes, and fuels from different sugars. Traditionally, these processes have involved a single feedstock, most often glucose. More recently, significant effort has been devoted towards developing processes that directly use plant-based material as the feedstock. One…

Millikan's oil-drop experiment is one of the classic experiments from the history of physics. Due to its content (the determination of the elementary charge) it is also among those experiments that are frequently used and discussed in teaching situations. Disappointingly, a review of the educational literature on this experiment reveals that its…

Chemists continue to work at the forefront of materials science research. Recent advances include application of bioengineering to produce plastics from renewable biomass instead of petroleum, generation of paper-based batteries, and development of phototriggerable microcapsules for chemical delivery. In this article, the author provides summaries…

Contrary to popular opinion, most oil is not discovered by a backwoods hunter shooting at some food when up through the ground comes bubbling crude (you younger people ask your parents what silly TV program the author is referring to). Neither is it discovered simply by drilling holes randomly to see what you can find. There are several methods,…

The school district is the fundamental administrative unit of schooling in the United States and the superintendent the lead official. The nature and the challenges of this position, however, vary across the landscape. Because most superintendents lead rural districts, the challenges facing those districts are the ones that typically bedevil the…

When the deepwater horizon offshore oil drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, 11 crewmen were killed; the accident led to the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Forty workers on the rig managed to escape the catastrophe, thanks largely to a safety-training program they had taken at community colleges in the Louisiana Community…

The substitution of petroleum-based fuels with those from renewable sources has gained momentum worldwide. A UV-vis experiment for the quantitative analysis of biofuels (bioethanol or biodiesel) in (petroleum-based) diesel oil has been developed. Before the experiment, students were given a quiz on biofuels, and then they were asked to suggest a…

Transportation can simply be defined as the movement of goods, services, and people from one location to another. Without an efficient means to transport goods from place to place, the economy would be nothing like it is today. Throughout the history of the United States, American railroads have paved the way toward creating a nation of great…

This article addresses the issues and concerns about offshore oil drilling in the United States. The demand for energy is going up, not down, and for a long time, even as alternative sources of energy are developed, more oil will be needed. The strongest argument against drilling is that it could distract the country from the pursuit of…

This article reflects on some aspects of a doctoral ethnographic study of young people disaffected from schooling in a post-industrial space of ruin in a former coal-mining community in England. It considers how their experiences of resistance and refusal of schooling can, in the relational ethos of non-school support settings, come to speak back…

Natural catastrophes and engineering failures provide timely, motivating, and conceptually rich backdrops for learning. Engineering educators have long embraced case studies of engineering failures as a sound pedagogical strategy for meeting several learning standards, such as "design within realistic constraints", and teaching failure…