Education Centre

Mining and Minerals Activities Centre - General Information

Visits usually last from 1½ to 2 hours, but may be longer depending on the activities undertaken. The Centre has bus parking nearby and wheelchair access.

It is recommended that for primary classes a School Speaker visit your class before coming into the Centre. This ensures that the children have a basic understanding of the activities before the visit and the speaker can more closely tailor the presentation for the group when it visits the Centre.

Bookings for the Centre need to be made at least two weeks in advance. It is also advised that a visit by the class teacher be made to the Centre prior to the excursion in case any special requirements may be necessary. If required, the education officers at the Council, in cooperation with the teacher/s concerned, may conduct special activities and produce specific worksheets to accommodate the group.

A description of the activities in the Centre is as follows:

Crib Room
The crib room is where the miners have their morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea. The crib room gets its name from a "crib", which is an old Cornish miner's term for the lunch box (which usually contained a Cornish pastie).

Classes meet in the crib room, which is a small theatrette. A teacher will introduce students to geology, metals, minerals and mining, then direct each to the activity stations within the Centre.

Introductory videos showing operations that occur in the majority of mines in Australia may be shown. Many of the displays and activities in the Centre reinforce the things seen on the videos.

Mining Activity
The mine model - Students use their skills of observation to reinforce aspects of an underground mine with surface operation, including a minerals concentration mill and environmental works. They also see 3-D images of the underground workings at the Mt Lyell copper mine.

Geology & Exploration
Interactive computer video display - Students use an interactive computer display to find their way through the minerals industry in Tasmania.
Magnetic Exploration Game - Students use a simulated airborne magnetometer to discover a hidden orebody, and once located, use grid coordinates to fix its position.
Visual aids to exploration - Students discover interesting features in Tasmania using maps, aerial photographs, satellite images and gravity and magnetic images.
Thin sections of rocks - Through microscopes students see a kaleidoscope of colours caused by passing polarised light through thin sections of rock.

Drilling
Diamond drill cores - Students undertake a "compare and identify" activity using rock specimens and diamond drill cores.
Airleg drill - Students observe an airleg drill, commonly called a "panther".

Underground Mine Simulation
In a simulation, students enter a mine by first descending down a shaft in a "cage". They hear the sounds of the Rosebery Mine "cage" descending 800 metres into the ground. They walk through a model mine, where they see and hear many underground operations: a jumbo drill being used to drill the holes in the drive (tunnel) wall; a drive face primed with explosives; a haul truck; underground loading; rock bolts.

Minerals Separation
Minerals separation table - Students conduct scientific activities using a ball mill (instead of steel balls there are ping-pong balls), a rod mill, a froth flotation cell and hydrocyclones. Each uses a different method, based on well known scientific principles, to separate minerals.
Spiral - Students discover how gravity and "centrifugal" force are used to separate light from heavy minerals or large from small minerals.

Refining & Smelting
Zinifex (Pasminco) Hobart Smelter - Students use a mouse to find their way through an interactive computer display of the electrolytic zinc smelter in Hobart (suitable for high school students only).
TEMCO - Students observe a working model of a blast furnace that produces steel alloys and a simulation of a furnace being "tapped".
Comalco - Students learn about the processes used to produce aluminium and about the many uses of the metal.
NOTE: At the same station the latest minerals education related CD-ROM interactive computer simulations and games are displayed.

Products of Mining
Gold, copper, zinc, lead, iron, tin, nickel, coal - Students undertake activities with minerals, metals and metal products and complete worksheets in a metals reference centre. Information on individual mines within Tasmania is displayed, along with examples of the rocks and minerals mined at each.