Activity 4 - Coal and Your Community

Use the resources listed below to help you complete this activity.

To learn more about this topic, visit the following web sites:

Coal Exploration and Mining

"How Coal Is Produced" - Kentucky Educational Television and the American Coal Foundation
Site reviews surface and underground mining methods used to remove coal from the ground. Also included in the site is information about the regulations governing coal mining and the people who mine coal.

"Coal Resource Recoverability" - Rohrbacher, et al., U.S. Bureau of Mines Circular 9368
Online circular reviews the factors associated with coal production, including mining, cleaning, recoveries, etc. Includes tables and figures to illustrate concepts and examples.

"Coal Resource Classification System of the U.S. Geological Survey - Geophysical Logs as a Source of Coal Bed Data" - Wood et al., USGS Circular 891
Excerpt from online circular explains how geophysical techniques can be used to identify coal beds and to quantify their resources. Includes examples and explanations of geophysical logs.

"U.S. Coal Supply and Demand:2000 Review" - F. Freme - EIA - DOE

Part C: Conserving Coal Resources

To complete the investigation, each student group will need:

• Calculator
  
  
• Internet access. To learn about ways to conserve energy resources, visit the following web sites:
  
  

"Energy Savers - Tips on Saving Energy and Money at Home" - EREN - DOE

"50 Ways to Save Energy & Money" - Snohomish P.U.D.

"40 Simple Ways to Save Energy" - Washington Military Department - Emergency Management Division

"Learning About Saving Energy" - State of North Dakota

Inquiring Further:

To learn more about electricity usage in other countries, visit the following web sites:

"International Electricity Information" - EIA - DOE

"International Energy Annual 2002" - EIA DOE

Send all comments about this website to education@agiweb.org

Last updated: May 11, 2010

This project is supported, in part, by the National Science Foundation and the AGI Foundation. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Foundation.