PA Environment Digest

The Marcellus Shale runs under more than half of Pennsylvania, and conversations about its potential as an energy resource and its environmental impacts continue to take place.

In an effort to help inform the public on the topic of Marcellus Shale, Penn State Public Broadcasting has created Exploreshale.org: an interactive website where visitors can discover how the entire process of natural gas drilling works.

The public can scroll beneath the surface, learn more about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and how land and water are used in the process.

“Marcellus Shale is on the front page of every newspaper and on the forefront of discussion in Pennsylvania,” said Casey Fenton, project manager at PSPB. “There are lots of opinions on both sides of the issue and we felt like people would benefit from foundational knowledge they needed to talk about it constructively.”

Educators and students have generated the most traffic on the website, Fenton said. PSPB has extended the project for school districts by providing posters to Pennsylvania science teachers and developing a segment on the website where teachers can share how they’re using these resources in the classroom.

Exploreshale.org also targets Pennsylvania citizens who want to understand and converse with others about Marcellus Shale, but don’t know where to find accurate or unbiased information.

“We see this project as a springboard of sorts,” Fenton said. “It’s just the science and it’s not telling you how to think. After going on the site, a lot of people will feel more comfortable going out there and forming their own opinions.”

PSPB also created five short videos that feature basic questions and answers about the process of fracking Marcellus Shale. The videos have begun to air on WPSU-TV, and will be offered to public TV stations across Pennsylvania.

Explore Shale was made possible with support from the Colcom Foundation.

Penn State Public Broadcasting, licensed to Penn State, produces non-commercial television, radio and online media. Our public service media programming and complementary outreach materials address important societal issues for Pennsylvania, the nation and the world.

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