Outreach May 2023
Chris Ennen represented the Geophysical Society of Houston at Ridgemont Elementary School on Friday, May 12th. The career day was organized by Angela Gibson, the school counselor at Ridgemont. It took place in the school's gymnasium. A dozen companies were represented including several banks, the Fort Bend sheriff's office, Microsoft, and several occupational therapists.
Students from first to fifth grade attended the career day. Each grade had a time period where several classes in that grade were brought into the gym. Students were split into groups from three to five and rotated through the booths. Chris did not get the opportunity to speak with every student in each grade due to time constraints. He spoke with five or six groups in each grade.
Chris explained the importance of the oil and gas industry to everyday life. He related how oil and gas has to be found by looking into the earth, and how geophysical methods such as reflection seismic help geologists and geophysicists create images of the subsurface to help find oil and gas reserves. He used a large display board that used a series of flashing lights to show a pressure wave created by an explosion of dynamite propagating through the subsurface and reflect off layers and travel back to the surface. He had a geophone with the casing cut away to show a copper coil mounted on a spring move up and down around a magnet.
The kids really enjoyed the presentation, and Chris handed out green helical spring toys painted with the GSH logo. He brought a box of 150 helical spring toys and handed all of them out. Hopefully he inspired another generation of up and coming geoscientists!