The Oklahoma Energy Resources Board (OERB) was founded in 1993 by the state legislature at the request of the oil and natural gas industry. Our leaders’ vision was to leverage the collective strength of the industry to restore land associated with historic well sites and help support educators across the state. Thanks to voluntary funding from the people of Oklahoma Oil & Natural Gas, the OERB has cleaned more than 18,000 historic well sites at no cost to landowners and provided millions of dollars of free classroom equipment to date. These huge achievements make the OERB the gold-standard for voluntarily supported oil and natural gas programs in the nation.

Today, our education programs have reached 3.3 million Oklahoma students and provided $54 million for classroom resources.

One of the largest pieces of our student education program are the Energy Education Workshops. The workshops are offered year-round at locations around the state. During these workshops, teachers are provided hands-on energy curricula developed by Oklahoma teachers for Oklahoma teachers. The curricula have been field-tested and are intended to supplement lessons that are already being taught. All nine curricula are aligned to Oklahoma Academic Standards and cover all grades. In addition to the curricula, teachers who complete a workshop receive a kit of materials for their classrooms. The kits are given to teachers for free at the conclusion of the workshop and are valued up to $1,100.

To date, the OERB has trained more than 17,000 teachers, reaching 98% of Oklahoma school districts.