Students master mine rehabilitation skills

Mentoring them in the Queensland Minerals and Energy Academy (QMEA) activity were experts in the field from New Hope’s New Acland opencast coal mine.

“We have an award winning rehabilitation programme that continually returns mined areas to agricultural and conservation uses,” said New Hope’s Dave O’Dwyer, General Manager New Acland Coal.

“It’s great that students can see just how much maths and science goes into this work, and by talking to our people, understand the many careers available for them here locally,” he said.

Principal of Oakey SHS Danny Keenan said it helped students’ understanding of topics when they could see how classroom work translated to the real world.

“These workshops place the students’ classroom learning in science technology engineering and maths (STEM) into a real world context, helping them join the dots between the theory and practice,” he said.

“Having the industry professionals there also helps them to see first-hand the possibilities from studying STEM subjects.”

Students used ‘magic sand’ to represent overburden and topsoil and calculated volumes needed to re-contour and rehabilitate the mined area.

The QMEA is a partnership between the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) and the Queensland Government under its Gateway to Industry Schools programme. It has 60 schools throughout Queensland.

QRC is the peak representative body for Queensland ‘s resource sector.

The Queensland resources sector provides one in every AUS$5 in the Queensland economy, sustains one in eight Queensland jobs, and supports more than 15 400 businesses and community organisations across the State, all from 0.1% of Queensland’s land mass.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/mining/31072019/students-master-mine-rehabilitation-skills/