Penn State Gets $2.5 Million Grant for Marcellus Research and Education

The National Sci­ence Foun­da­tion, an inde­pen­dent fed­eral agency, awarded Penn State Uni­ver­sity $2.5 mil­lion dol­lars for multi-disciplinary research and a pro­gram aimed at engag­ing the pub­lic in under­stand­ing issues sur­round­ing nat­ural gas drilling.

PSU’s “Mar­cel­lus Mat­ters” is a pro­gram designed to edu­cate adults through community-based pro­grams aimed at indi­vid­u­als who will be mak­ing deci­sions about leas­ing land, and reg­u­lat­ing the indus­try.  The pro­gram will be run by Michael Arthur, co-director of the Mar­cel­lus Cen­ter for Out­reach and Research. In a press release, Arthur said drilling comes with social, eco­nomic and envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges to Pennsylvania’s rural communities.

“The NSF project will address those chal­lenges,” said Arthur. As it will pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties for the res­i­dents of the Mar­cel­lus region to gain skills in sci­en­tific inquiry and build an under­stand­ing of sci­ence and energy that can be used in man­ag­ing change.”

The release says the grant will help develop a sci­en­tific knowl­edge base nec­es­sary to eval­u­ate the rapidly grow­ing gas drilling indus­try in Pennsylvania.