Mining Teacher Resources

The Harold Keen Coal Company has produced an excellent video which shows the viewer all about the process of mining coal that shows some rarely-seen images of the intricacies of underground mining. Surface mining is also described in...

Learners simulate coal mining with chocolate chip cookies and toothpicks. They investigate the costs associated with mining coal.

Young scholars should gain a better understanding of the processes involved in extracting coal from the Earth as a result of this lesson. They reearch the history of coal mining, look into coal mining towns, and create a short story...

To understand the impact coal mining has on the environment, pupils will extract chocolate chips from a cookie. Imagine the cookie is the environment and the chips are the coal. Instruct them to mine as many chips as they can, then have...

Knock a chip off the cookie. Learners purchase a property to mine and mining tools. Pupils use their tools to mine chocolate chips out of a cookie for 5 minutes and return cookie fragments to its original site. After the time is over,...

Learn a lot about copper and its uses from watching this excellent video. Mining techniques, facts about copper, and a very interesting section on the geology behind how copper ore has come to be present underground are all part of this...

The Mining Act of 1872 allows mining companies to purchase land from the U.S. Government at 1872 prices - about $5.00 an acre! This video features the town of Crested Butte, Colorado, and a mountain just outside of town that was...

It turns out asteroids could be a gold mine—literally! An It's Ok To Be Smart video lesson describes the untapped resources orbiting our solar system. The presenter considers the possibilities of space colonies using these resources as...

Students explore natural resources by conducting a geology experiment in class. In this mineral mining lesson, students discuss the types of geological material that can be found when mining and the uses for these resources such as coal....

What do your learners know about mining? Invite them to read about all of the materials that come from mining that go into building a house. Additionally, they answer four questions at the bottom of the worksheet.

Invite your class to dig in to an engaging journey into the world of mining! Here you'll find the tools to equip young miners with knowledge of soil, rocks, and minerals, as well as types of mining operations. To round things out, the...

Students campaign against land mines. In this WorldPeace lesson, students create educational posters about land mines. Students share their posters with their classmates.

Scholars build background knowledge about mining on Inuit lands. Working in small groups, they sort information about the Inuit onto a point of view chart to determine if mining is beneficial to Inuit communities. 

Study the chemistry of mining! Through nine lessons in the unit, learners explore different concepts related to mining. Their study ranges from rock and mineral analysis to the environmental impact of dynamite and the chemical reaction...

We are using some natural resources at a rate that means we will run out of them in the near future, but what if we could get them from space? Watch a video that highlights a company that was founded to mine asteroids and other...

Go on a moon mining expedition from the safety of your classroom with this space exploration simulation. Using simple models of the moon's surface prepared ahead of time by the teacher, young scientists are challenged with locating and...

Coal mines can be a gold mine of math applications. After reading some basic information on coal mining, learners draw blueprints of a coal pillar in the shape of a composite figure. They find the volume of material from the coal pillar...

In this mining and nonrenewable resources worksheet, students read about mining in Texas and simulate the extraction of nonrenewable minerals. They use cookies and their components to represent the minerals they will mine and they answer...

Eighth graders put their knowledge of rocks and minerals into perspective by seeing how minerals can be mined and the difficulties and costs of mining. They explore the environmental impacts of mining.

The United States Steel Company has produced this interesting, fast-paced video which takes the viewer through entire process of making steel from ore that is mined. It is interesting to note that there are hundreds of varieties of steel...

The three methods of extracting salt — evaporation of seawater, salt mining, and solution in water — are the focus of an informative video that includes additional interesting details, such as the fact that the word salary is...

In this mining learning exercise, students fill in the blanks to paragraphs about mining uranium and a nuclear reactor. Students fill in the blanks for 17 sentences.

Young scholars examine a timeline of coal mining in the US and research how the policies of coal dependent companies have changes over the last 50 years.

Students observe the effects of mining on a mountain.  In this environmental awareness lesson, students will be challenged to extract items from a model of a mountain without disturbing the vegetation on the mountain. Students will...