Oil and Gas Trunk

This trunk includes DVDs, tools, samples, and other materials for hands-on learning.

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Trunk Contents

  • Wrench - This is an offset wrench for getting to hard-to-reach nuts and bolts. Wrenches are essential tools in oil field work. Notice the word Shell stamped near the head of the wrench. Shellis an oil company that operated in the oil boomtown of Roxanna, Oklahoma. This wrench was probably used by oil field workers in the late 1920s near Roxanna. Some of the rust and corrosion have been removed, but some has been left to give a sense of the age of this tool.
  • Hard Hat - Working on an oil rig has many dangers; head injuries are one of them. Men who worked on drilling rigs began wearing hard hats in the 1930s.
  • Work gloves
  • Overalls
  • Drill Bit - This is a rotary drill bit. It would be screwed onto the end of the drill string. As the drill string rotated, the bit turned and ground through the formation.
  • Video What’s the Risk? - This OERB video encourages students not to play anywhere near well sites.
  • Video Wildcat/Gungoll - Although this video is very dated, the information is as true today as it was in 1956. Also, the video is specifically about Oklahoma. In that way, this would be an excellent part of your curriculum on the oil and gas industry in Oklahoma. It covers every stage of oil exploration and drilling. It starts with the research done to decide on a drilling site and obtain permission to drill there. It concerns obtaining financing for the project. Then you see all the steps involved in setting up the drilling rig and get a good overview of the drilling process. Included is an explanation of the roles of the people who work on the rig. Aside from technological improvements, this information remains relevant and useful today.
    One way to approach the video is to tell your students in advance that people will look different from how they do today. They talk differently. The cars are old. Almost everyone smokes, and they smoke all the time. All the quoted prices are much lower than they would be today. This could be a time capsule of 1956 for your students. So if your students can look beyond the dated presentation, they could learn a lot about oil drilling in Oklahoma.
  • DVD The Glenn Pool Story - This is an excellent video that tells the story of arguably Oklahoma's most important oil field.
  • Core samples (2) – samples of rock from within a wellbore
  • Boxes of mineral samples (2) – a variety of minerals of interest to oil field geologists
  • Lunch box and thermos from the 1950s
  • Liniment bottle
  • Box of a variety of household items made partly or entirely from petroleum
  • “A Century of Oil,” a laminated timeline
  • Hemp rope two inches thick and twenty inches long
  • Steel braided cable, a half-inch thick
  • Sieve (2) for sifting through drilling mud to examine the cuttings
  • Canvas Oklahoma Historical Society bag containing:
    • Laminated picture of a Christmas tree and a pumping unit
    • Four early oil field scenes on foam board
    • Three early oil field scenes laminated
    • Fossils to Fuel curriculum book from OERB
    • Compact disc with images and lesson plans on oil and gas
    • Laminated Oklahoman article on drilling in an urban setting
    • Five copies of the Oklahoman drilling article
  • Chesapeake DVDs (3)
  • Strike Oil Game in bag
  • Build and test your own derrick activity