In 1901 the Texas Oil Boom began when a lot of oil was discovered in Texas. Cities like Houston and Dallas grew because they had railroads that could ship the oil and were not too far from where oil was being drilled. Galveston got smaller because all the hurricanes made it a less reliable place to ship from. Texas benefited from the discovery of oil by having money that was available and donated to the building of universities, hospitals, scientific research, public education and the building of roads.
The downside to all of this oil is pollution. The picture below was taken from the top of the San Jacinto Monument when we went there. For more information about the pros and cons of oil in Texas visit our previous post A Slippery Subject. https://www.4thelove.net/post/a-slippery-subject
We have been learning about two kinds of renewable energy which are wind and solar. We built a turbine and used a fan to mimic the wind. We were able to light up a small light with the energy generated from the fan. We also measured the amount of energy created when the fan was going different speeds. Below is a picture of our experiment and a diagram of how the turbine works.
We found that the wind energy was not as reliable as we would like because the fan had to be going pretty fast to make the light bulb light up, and, you never know when the wind will be blowing. Below, you will see a video of using a solar panel to power a small fan. This seems much more reliable because it worked even on a really cloudy day.
In the future, I would like to see more renewable energy used, and oil and gas as a backup rather than our main source of energy. This will keep our planet healthier than it is currently because I feel like it is not too too good for the animals.