Tour+and+Education+Sessions+at+Martha+Goldmine

=What happens on a field trip when visiting our Gold Mine?=

=__Tours of our Goldmine__=

General Gold Tour
During our goldmine tours we tell students the story of how gold was first discovered in 1878 by two men Robert Lee and John McCombie. We then head up to the side of our mine site and talk about how these men were dissappointed to find that the quartz rock was of poor quality. History of goldmining in Waihi has left many interesting stories. Our Pumphouse, the poppet head and many statues represent a rich history. Children are told about the animals that worked the mine with horses coming out only twice a year. We then talk children through what is happening in our Mine Pit relating to getting the gold out. They are also given the opportunity to touch a real pice of gold and silver and told why and how gold has become so important in so many ways. Our tour by the mine pit includes a look into the future with the Mine Pit one day becoming a lake. We discuss how that will happen and what things it can be used for. We discuss our future plans relating to an underground mine inside the bounds of our mine pit to explore further for gold.

If you have a bus we then travel over to the other side of our mine site where our conveyor belt takes all the rock too from our mine pit. Children are taken to where the gold and silver is extracted from quartz rock called the 'The Mill'. They then get the opportunity to travel up to the top of our waste Rock Embankments getting a closer view of our big Dump Trucks and Tailings Storage Facilities.

Water Tour
We developed this tour with our local college during Term 1 of 2012. We discuss how important water is and how we work to reduce, reuse and recycle water in a variety of ways. We talk about how the Ohinemuri river has been used in the past with very little environmental considertation and how that is different today. We talk about the Golden Cross mine with their high rainfall and also a little about Waihi operating with a surplus of water.

=Secondary and older=

With our older students we explain how minng started in Waihi. We share a little about the rich history of our town and show a piece of quartz rock that has come from the main Martha Reef that helped our Martha Mine to be one of the top 10 gold mines in the world in the early 1900's. We talk about our production figures of gold and silver and also our employment figures and local spending. We discuss how we mitigate noise, sound and vibration effects because we work in the middle of a town. We share the process that is happening inside our mine pit from beginning to end in getting rock out of the ground and onto our primary crusher. We give costs of trucks and sizes of diggers comparing them to known quantities where helpful. We disucss future plans including our Martha Exploration Project at a cost of around 70 million to further explore beneath the bottom of our mine pt.

We then travel by bus over to our processing plant and share how gold and silver is extracted from quartz rock. We hand around large steel balls, carbon granuals and gold and silver so students can get a hands on experience of what is happening. We then travel up to our Waste Rock Embankments where all of our Waste rock travels. Students get an up and close view of the rock tumbling along our conveyor belt which travels approximately 2.8 kms from the Open Mine Pit.

We talk about the tailings which has a small amount of sodium cyanide in it and also the future for our waste rock embankments.

We then return back toward Waihi stopping to take in the Underground entrance which is the only vehicle access to our underground mine. If we are lucky we see some of our specialised machinary coming out of the portal. We share a little about how this is different to open cast mining in relating to operating hours and environmental conditions.

Primary Aged Education Sessions
In our purpose built classroom students are broken into teams of three. Each student is numbered within this group 1 -3 and are then sent off to take part in 3 different activities. Students have an opportunity to have a go at **ALL 3** of the activities.

Activity 1 has students making their own tag. This includes their name, a QR code which relates to uses of Gold and Silver, a piece of gold jewellery with nearly 50 percent of gold being used in jewellery, a syringe relating to medical used and a tooth holder with the USA using more than 30 tonnes in their teeth each year. We discuss why gold is useful for each of these things and the small symbols give children a learning reminder to take away with them as well as writing some of this information on to small cards.

Activity 2 has students with an ipod touch each scanning QR codes and answering questions on a mini web quest. This is a great activity for practising scannng and skimming. When students get through the first few answers they are then able to check their answers and open a gold box to gain a piece of Newmont treasure before continuing on to answer the rest of the questions. Students can take these home and share them with Parents and Caregivers.

Activity 3 has children working on a slideshow about one of five topics. Children with their two partners take turns to develop a slideshow relating to the NZ Dotterel, Sustainability (futureof Waihi), Uses of Gold and Silver, Exploration and A History Of Waihi and Mining. Students design colours, transitions, text and music while also adding their pictures. When the lesson ends the slideshow are burnt to a DVD in Quicktime format, ready for teachers to take back to school and play on Data projectors or for students to take home and play in DVD players.

Secondary Education Session
We are happy to talk about our new project Corresno, MEP or any other area that may be of help. Please let us know.

After an introduction to mining in Waihi and the opprotunity for students to ask any questions relating to assessments or general interest, students are also broken into three groups.

Group 1 looks at stakeholders opinions from our Trio project. We have photocopied actual submissions without names showing the different opinions of people in and out of our community. Students are asked to summarise three of these taking into consideration their points of view, recording this onto a worksheet. the second part of this has students using a sheet and recording 10 ways that Gold and Silver is used. they then identify tree of these that most affect them.

Group 2 takes an ipod touch and investigates a range of monitoring that Newmont Waihi undertakes to ensure environmental conditions are met in mining in Waihi. Hopefully through this activity students gain a better understanding of how we work to ensure Waihi has mininal impact from mining operations and how mining practises have changed from earlier times.

Group 3 uses google maps on computers to identify a variety of places that could have an environmental effect on Waihi or the surrounding area. They look at potentially harmful effects and look at how these could be remedied, mitigated or avoided.

We are able to use specialised speakers from our office at times where applicable. Please talk to me about this if you believe it would be helpful.

Tertiary Education Sessions
With our tertiary groups we generally will pull in speakers relating to the field of expertise of the students. We have specialists in consent conditions, an environment team, business managers, geologists and our external affairs manager and communications team leader are often available with appropriate amounts of notice where needed. They have a relatively good understanding and overview of current mining issues in relation to Waihi.

Underground Experience
This is brand new here at Newmont Waihi Gold. We often get asked "can we go underground?" and the answer is no, you have to be 18 years of age. But now you can with our overground underground experience. We have tried to make the room next door exactly like it is underground and have a large screen video to go with it as we take an adventure down underneath the ground. This is open to use and we are continuing to develop it to be a high level attraction in relation to learning and mining. Suitable for all ages.

Mine Pit Activity
Aound our mine pit we have created an activity that takes students and famlies on a learning journey about our mine. As groups take on the 4 km walk they are challenged to answer questions on their way organsing 14 cards into correct order. If they achieve this they will strike gold at the end as the cards will reveal a combination that allows them to access one piece of quartz rock each coming from deep within one of our under ground mines.