Gain a systemic understanding of critical raw materials and learn about strategies and solutions to manage them in a sustainable way.

Geologist Peter Appel and a miner Leoncio Onay tells about mercury free gold mining by the ‘gravity-borax method’.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Manufacturing and resources industries are critical drivers of economic progress, but they release large amounts of waste, threatening the health of surrounding ecosystems and nearby human communities. Inorganic pollutants like heavy metals and metalloids are especially problematic because they persist and bioaccumulate. However, specialized bacteria called methanotrophs can detoxify them using only methane as a carbon/energy source. Methanobactin peptides help these bacteria bind and reduce certain metal ions, such as copper. These bacteria can also reduce chromium, selenium, and mercury into less-toxic forms. Chromium is released from industries such as tanneries, but bacteria such as Methylococcus capsulatus can reduce this metal over a range of concentrations. Methanotrophs can also detoxify selenium, which is associated with mining, coal combustion, and electronic equipment production, and package it into useful nanoparticles..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Our modern world uses many different materials, often complexly constructed and difficult to recycle. Students investigate the elements in a smartphone and innovations in cement and steel. They also consider the challenge of communicating about large and complex numbers. This guide an extension of the TILclimate episode "TIL about materials."

Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum/Geology of National Parks module. Students calculate the amount of rock removed and the value of copper produced at the great Keweenaw District up to 1925.

In this video from the Science and Technology Chat series, take a tour of a re-created Nevada gold mine to learn about mining techniques.

In this lesson students will learn about Minnesota's natural resources, particularly iron ore.

In this lesson, created in partnership with the Association for Cultural Equity, students gain a deeper understanding of what life might have been like for a working class person during this period of American history by examining the songs and stories of Nimrod Workman. Born in 1895, Workman began working in the West Virginia coal mines at fourteen years old, and continued for 42 years. By analyzing Workman's songs and personal stories, which were recorded by Alan Lomax in 1983, students gain a first-hand account of one of the most dangerous, violent, and least regulated industries in American history, and discover the relationships between labor, industry, and the government from the 1890s to the end of World War II.

This article provides background information related to natural resources of the poles, and renewable and non-renewable energy.

This optional homework asks students to investigate some of the impacts of previous mines, mining, and/or mineral resources processing on the surrounding environment and human health. Many of the sites were operated prior to significant changes in the U.S. regulation of mines that was instituted in the late 1960s. Through the investigation of an Abandoned Mine Lands (AML) National Priority List (NPL) website (aka Superfund), students will explore not only the impacts but also the amount of time, effort, and resources it takes to remediate the sites. This background can be referred to in later parts of the module when discussing mining in other countries where the regulations are not as stringent as those in the United States.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This is the Justice Department's Radiation Exposure Compensation Program homepage. This site features information about the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, including claimant categories, claim forms, and the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. This site also provides a table illustrating a summary of all claims received and compensation paid to date.

This activity uses an assortment of digital resources relevant to exploring resource development on Native American lands. The activity is based on a website that uses an Earth System approach to help students understand how Native American lands have been impacted by resource development. In the role-playing exercise, students are assigned one of several roles, including consulting geologists, the mining industry, tribal elders and public health officials. Each student uses the web-based learning materials to research the issue from the perspective of their role. This type of exercise could also be used as a debate by dividing a class into groups that play the roles of the Navajo people and the Federal Government.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

The mission of Southwest Research and Information Center is to promote the health of people and communities, protect natural resources, ensure citizen participation, and secure environmental and social justice now and for future generations. The Uranium Impact Assessment Program contains information about current issues dealing with the Navajo Nation. Useful fact sheets are found on this site.

This exhibition explores the Gold Rush—a group of related gold rushes to Western territories in the second half of the nineteenth century—and its impact on American history and culture. Catalyzed by the discovery of gold the Sierra Nevada in 1848, gold fever would persist for decades, attracting migrants looking to stake their claims to increasingly northern and eastern destinations—from the Rocky Mountains in present-day Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana to the Yukon Territory and present-day Alaska by the 1890s. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Digital Curation Program by the following students as part of Professor Krystyna Matusiak's course "Digital Libraries" in the Library and Information Science program at the University of Denver: Heidi Buljung, Chelsea Condren, Rachel Garfield-Levine, Sarah Martinez, Liz Slaymaker-Miller, Chet Rebman, and Brittany Robinson.

Surface Mine Design problems for the WeBWorK open online homework system.

The "tested" problems have been deployed in a class. The "untested" problems have been tested by the creators, but not yet deployed in a class.

These problems need to be uploaded into an instance of WeBWorK to use/assign them.

What do technology and innovation mean from Africa? This is the central question of this course, which tackles a double absence: Of the meanings and role of technology in African history, on the one hand, and of Africa's place in the global history of technology, on the other. This course alternates between technologies from outside and technologies from within Africa and their itineraries in everyday life, and it is designed to provide students with grounded understandings of technology in Africa for intellectual and action-oriented purposes.

This is an activity about transport of sediment contaminated by copper, arsenic, and other heavy metals that was deposited into the Clark Fork River channel as the result of historical mining activity. The Clark Fork River between Butte and Milltown, Montana has been the focus of several large superfund projects designed to address the impacts of this legacy of mining in the watershed. This activity is used in an introductory physical geology lab (primarily non-majors) with students who may have limited experience working with quantitative analysis and analyzing graphs.

(Note: this resource was added to OER Commons as part of a batch upload of over 2,200 records. If you notice an issue with the quality of the metadata, please let us know by using the 'report' button and we will flag it for consideration.)

This is an educational and public program designed to increase awareness of uranium health effects and environmental issues for students and community members that are impacted by uranium mining on the Navajo Nation. The site contains lesson plans, teaching resources and information about problem-based learning. There is also a paper on bridging indigenous and traditional scientific approaches as well as many useful links to additional resources.

This collection uses primary sources to explore coal mining and labor in West Virginia. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.