Newspaper joins industry teaching mining to youth

The Northern Miner has joined in a direct way, along with the industry itself, in attempting to educate the young people of Canada about mining in this country, and to show coming generations how vital the industry is to Canada’s continued growth and prosperity.

The newspaper has bought two special teaching-aid kits (sophisticated units which utilize film strips and audio tapes as well as printed materials) which were presented to school boards in the Temiskaming area of Ontario for use by elementary schools in that area.

The Northern Miner is in fact one of the few companies or institutions to sponsor these kits in a particular area. We selected Cobalt, of course, because that is where this paper was born — 72 years ago. In fact this famous old silver mining town is generally regarded as the very birthplace of Canadian mining itself as it is known today.

The kits, some 40 of which are already in use in schools mainly in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and British Columbia, are the brainchild of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.

The mining education project was started almost 10 years ago by the education committee of the CIM, when it instructed the committee to take action to integrate information about mining into Canada’s school system.

Out of this was born the idea of the education kit, a tool planned to augment school materials already available from other sources, including the Mining Association of Canada, CIM branches, and individual mining companies.

“The kits, like the ones contributed by The Northern Miner, have been very successful in the schools,” says Douglas Sloan, president of the CIM Foundation, a body set up by the Institute specifically to deal with public education on the mining industry.

“They are good, factual teaching helps,” Mr Sloan says, adding that there are about 2,000 teachers using them in elementary schools across Canada, conveying a positive message on mining to hundreds of thousands of students.

He said he knows of no other industry or industry association in the country employing such educational materials.

“Educating the children of Canada about the benefits of the mining industry is like building a subway,” he comments. “The benefits from providing teachers with these kits today are mostly in the future — possibly over 20 years away.”

The kits themselves are composed of three separate modules, a primary module for student ages 5 to 8, a junior module for ages 9 to 11, and an intermediate module for ages 12 to 13.

As well as the film strips and audio tapes, the kits contain teaching materials and aids including projects, experiments, field trips, games, and play acting, etc.