Rocks and minerals are all around us! They help us to develop new technologies and are used in our everyday lives. Explore rocks and minerals for industry, technology and personal use.
Rocks are important to the survival of the human species. We even name human pre-history as the ‘Stone Age’ followed by the Metal Ages (Bronze Age, Iron Age, etc.). Studying and understanding rocks gives us the capacity to use them for art, architecture, cement, ceramics, currency, defence, energy, farming, fire, hunting, jewellery, making metals, making monuments, music, painting, road surfaces, sport, weapons and more. All living things depend on nutrients from soil which is weathered rock. We wouldn’t have the technology we have today without rocks!
Students explore minerals (the building blocks of rocks) and their uses; they work through a representation of core sampling in a gold mine; and they have a chance to find their fortune (there’s gold in them there hills) using our high-tech metal detectors.
