Money matters for Mining Matters

The Mining Matters program, which teaches earth sciences to Ontario elementary school students, is trying to raise $75,000 this year, and so far has scraped together about $30,000.

Created by the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada, the program had been partially funded by a 3-year grant from the Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, but the subsidy ended last year.

Program Co-ordinator Laura Clinton, a graduate of the University of Toronto’s environmental science program, says raising money is the hard part of the job; teaching kids about science and geology is comparatively easy.

Clinton and other teachers have developed two new teaching programs: a bilingual one for grade 4 called “Deeper and Deeper,” and one for grade 7 called “Mining Matters II: the Earth’s Crust.” Both programs meet the requirements of the province’s science and technology curriculum.

Deeper and Deeper makes use of 38 lesson plans, 50 rock and mineral samples, mineral testing equipment, maps, photographs, diagrams, quizzes and a card game. The grade-7 kit is roughly the same size but has 72 samples, plus videos, posters and books. The kits cost about $250 each, but the Mining Matters program charges school boards only $65.

Each summer Mining Matters hires two university students and high school students through a work-share program with the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (Mining Matters and the ministry each get the students for two months). The students help gather mineral samples for study in the classroom.

Clinton travels around Ontario distributing the kits to schools and explaining how to use them. Last year, she taught 64 workshops, two of which took place in the remote village of Attawapiskat, a former trading post near Moosonee. De Beers Canada Exploration invited Clinton to instruct northern teachers and introduce them to the Mining Matters curriculum.

Clinton says getting teachers interested in the curriculum is more challenging than engaging the students, who naturally gravitate to the kits’ interactive materials. Last year, Trevor Smith of Toronto won Mining Matters’ Junior Miner of the Year contest and was given $150 for developing a board game called Mineralopoly, the object of which is to travel around the board with polished stones without losing one’s mineral-based possessions.

To date, more than 6,000 teaching units have been distributed to grade 4 and 7 classrooms; another 400 will be handed out this year.

Eventually, Clinton wants to take the program to the secondary level. “We would love to see something to support the secondary-school curriculum. I also would like to see us promoting careers in the mineral industry.”