Did you know?

• The United States consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day, but only produces 5 million barrels a day.
• 63 % of the oil that ends up into the sea is from natural oil seeps in the ocean floor. 33% of the oil in the sea comes from the people who use the oil. For example, when people spill oil by filling their gas tanks, the rain washes it to the sea.
• One of the first successful oil wells drilled for the purpose of finding oil was in western Pennsylvania by Colonel Edwin Drake in 1859.
• Oil wells can be drill 38,000 feet under ground.
• Long ago the only way people got petroleum was by digging by hand or by small amounts of oil leaking out naturally.
• The most productive oil wells in the United States was in Texas, with one well producing 800,000 barrels in 9 days. This whole field yielded more than 140 million barrels of oil.
• There are 260 billion barrels of oil in reserves. The world consumes 85 million a day.
• A 42 gallon barrel of oil provides more than 44 gallons of petroleum products. This is because when it is refined, it expands.
• Petroleum is used in many different aspects in our lives, such as heating our homes and fueling our cars. Some products made from petroleum are ink, crayons, bubble gum, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses, records, and tires.
• The United States is the third top oil producing country.
• The top oil producing state ing the US is Texas.

My collage

I have redone my collage for the reason that the first one didnt have as many pictures as would show what my project is about.

Collage

Vocabulary

I have added some more vocabulary words to my list and whats interesting to me is that I have heard these words before when I went to the oil field.

Webliography

I have found most of my sites for my research and I have already started to make my works cited page on easybib.com.

Foundation Questions

I have thought of ten questions to help me to answer my essential question and these questions are:

1. What is a Petroleum Engineer and what do they do?
2. What are all of the steps to successfully drilling oil?
3. What equipment is needed?
4. How much does everything cost?
5. How is technology used in drilling oil?
6. How do they know which places are best to find it?
7. What problems do they face and how do they solve them?
8. Are Petroleum Engineers involved in every process of drilling or only some and how?

Essential Question

I believe that I have found an essential question for my topic. My topic is oil drilling, and my essential question is:

How is oil taken out of the ground and how are petroleum engineers involved?

I have started my research and am taking some notes on my topic and I think I have found some good information. As I look more into my topic, I think that it is something that I have a lot of interest in and can learn a lot from. I also talked to my mentor today and we talked about me being employed as a summer job as my action. I don't know if that is an acceptable action, but I will discuss this with Ms. Savido. I think this would be a good experience because there are many people there, including Petroleum Engineers, who I can gain knowledge from, and also this summer, they will be going through the whole process of drilling oil out of the ground.

I have looked at some sites to begin research on my topic. The websiteds that I have found are:

www.theprincetonreview.com/careers
http://www.bls.gov/
http://www.howstuffworks.com/

http://www.worldwidelearn.com/online-education-guide/engineering/petroleum-engineering-major.htm.

These websites have information on Petroleum engineering and their jobs at the site of an oil well, including what they do and how they are involved in the process.

Topic and Essential question

This week I have been talking to my mentor, Dan about my graduation project and I have decided that I want to do it on Petroleum Engineering, since engineering is something I am interested in pursuing in the future. I want to be an engineer, but I want to explore another field of engineering besides electrical. Also, this is something I have had exposure to and am very interested in. Over April break, I have been visiting an oil field with Dan. He owns an oil rigging business and I have seen some of what they do to prepare for the beginning of the process of oil drilling. I talked to him and he is willing to help me with finding more information about the subject and since I already often visit the oil field with him, I can get out and get more experience in this field of engineering. In regard to my essential question, Im thinking that it should be, How are Petroleum Engineers involved in the processes of engineering? and What is involved in the process on drilling oil?
I think this is something I can spend months on because from what I have found on the subject, the processes take months at a time and people in a variety of fields, such as geologists, Engineers, and others who work together during these processes.