In mid-July, Yates Petroleum Corporation and Mack Energy Corporation invited 55 teachers from southern New Mexico to participate in its 2006 Oil and Natural Gas Summer Institutes for Educators. Over the course of five days, teachers from the towns of Artesia, Carlsbad, Lovington, Roswell, Hobbs and Dexter, Jal and Tatum learned about the oil and gas industry, and about New Mexico’s oil reserves. Teachers also visited a drilling site and a natural gas processing facility.

And, according to this story in the Santa Fe New Mexican, teachers were paid a $500 stipend once they submitted approved lesson plans to the institute’s organizers.

So, just who were the institute’s organizers? The Center for Energy Education is run by the Hobbs, N.M.-based consulting firm Joan Tucker & Associates. Never heard of the Center for Energy Education? That’s not surprising. But the name Yates should ring a bell with High Country News readers. That’s the family energy company with close ties to both President Bush and Vice President Cheney, which also plans to drill for oil and natural gas at Otero Mesa.

It turns out that there is a lot of information out there for teachers interested in sharing the energy industry’s perspective with students. The American Petroleum Institute has educational resources, as does Chevron and the NEED Project, a nonprofit which is chaired by Paul Loeffelman with American Electric Power.

It would be great if more American kids understood the inner workings of a power plant and knew from where oil and natural gas came. But it would also be nice for them to learn about conservation, energy efficiency and the effects of carbon dioxide on the planet. All in all, it’s a sad statement on New Mexico’s public schools that cash-strapped teachers are having their lesson plans approved by local energy companies.