Today we had Yukon Dan come into our class. He taught us all about the mining industry and how to mine for gold. We learned that you shouldn't touch the gold with your hands. That's because you have oil on your hands and if you get it on the gold the gold will float to the top of the river water and then it will just float away and you will have no gold! We also learned how important mining is to us. Minerals are found everywhere! They are even found in our food! We use them for lots of thing like jewellery, electronics, even for fillings in our mouth!
We got to go to three different stations. At the first station we got to pan for gold!
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| Panning for Gold!!!! |
At the second station we got to use a magnet to separate the rocks from the other minerals and then we used a high powered magnifying glass to see what types of minerals we could see. Lots of us saw garnets.
Scientists at work!
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| Separating the rocks from the minerals! |
The last station was a word search. We had so much fun! At the end of the workshop we each got to take home special mineral!
As one of our students said at the end, "I have gold fever now!!!"
If you are really interested in mining for gold or finding out more about Yukon Dan you can visit his website at
www.yukondan.com.
I loved hearing all about all the learning that you did with Yukon Dan. Matt and Nik explained how you can't use a brand new gold pan for the gold, because of the oil found on it. Panning for gold must have been very exciting!
ReplyDeleteMatt and Nik's mom