Day 4

6-8-17
Today was field trip today! I added a great deal of knowledge to what I learned last time. The mine opened for production in 2002. We were driving on reclaimed land from the original cut. It look undisturbed to me!
We talked about  how the run-off water that was used in mining is held until the water quality is restored to 'natural' levels of Ph, etc.  A flocculant is added to settle the sediment and it pulls many of the dissolved metals out of the water. Sometimes that is enough to 'fix' the water quality. This was of interest to me because we always had to check and adjust water quality in our fish ponds. Also, I've used a flocculant to settle a dirty swimming pool!
The mine has a great positive impact on the area because of tax dollars and employment opportunities. They also leave the land 'as good as' they found it. They will plant pines, hardwoods or grasses according to what the landowner wishes.
I also found out that retirees from other businesses seek employment here. They can start a new retirement, etc. here.


When we returned to the IED computer lab Dr. Sherman Morris asked us to find a resource about mining that we could use. I found a news item from 'mining.com' that reported how liDar (light reflected from a laser) had found Roman gold mines in Spain. That actually cleared up one of my questions at the mine:  how do they determine where 'coal' (in this case - lignite) might be found.  Apparently there were many geographic surveys in the 1970'2 in response to the energy crisis. These geological surveys are used today to reveal what type of land/soil places have. The area in this mine was the shore of a major body of water. Compressed vegetation formed lignite in Cypress swamp areas.
Here is the link to the article about the mine in Spain:
http://www.mining.com/lidar-survey-discovers-roman-gold-mines-in-spain-99350

I would try to find several articles like this in Spanish-speaking places and ask TDQ (Text Dependent Questions) to practice reading skills. Another possibility is the Chilean mine disaster.... The articles would need to be authentic, that is the actual news article. Students need to be challenged beyond their reading levels to improve their abilities to guess meanings of unknown words using context clues and cognates.