Background:

Minerals are the basic building blocks of our society. We find them in rocks and ores. There are almost 5000 different minerals known in the world, but just a few of them build up rocks. These types of minerals are called rock-forming minerals. Some of the minerals have special value because we make products from them. Geologists call these minerals ore minerals.

The Earth's crust consists of different types of rocks that are composed of one or several different types of minerals. Valuable rocks that are extracted for the purpose of economic value are called ores. The name ore is an economic term, meaning rocks that contains a large enough amount of a valuable mineral - ore mineral - and can be sold for a profit.

Before we can begin to mine minerals out of the Earth’s crust, geologists must first locate these deposits. The process of locating new minerals is called mineral exploration and is performed by specialized teams of geologists using modern techniques, such as mapping, geophysics and drilling. Once a resource is defined, mining can be carried out. When the ore is mined it needs to be processed in order to separate ore minerals from the rest of the minerals. This is done by processes like mechanical crushing and milling together with chemical or thermal treatment. From that, we get raw materials, such as copper, gold, iron or lithium.

Raw materials are essential in the manufacturing of tools and technologies we use every day. Primary raw materials are the materials we get by mining ore minerals directly from Earth’s crust. Secondary raw materials can be scraps or waste produced in the processing of primary raw materials or collected through recycling and returned to the economy. Almost everything around us is made from raw materials.

Exercise preparation:

Before the exercise, divide the Lego bricks in bags, one for each group. Put the same number of each color in every bag. Also prepare smaller bags with 2, 4 or 8 red Lego bricks for each group. These will be used for a calculation of the ore proportion. The students will get these towards the end of the exercise. Divide the class into groups (4 students per group are recommended).

Exercise content:

Teachers can choose to follow a step-by-step instruction written below or adjust and extract parts of the exercise, depending on how much time they devote to the topic. Teachers can also adjust the difficulty of tasks and exercises. Building on prior knowledge of students is important for the cross-curricular connections in the exercise.

Step-by-step instructions

Step 2:

Introduction of the Minecraft game and BetterGeo mod – Slide 2

Introduce the Minecraft game and the BetterGeo mod in Slide 2. If you want, you can present BetterGeo mod in Minecraft with the video (link to it is in the presentation).

Step 3:

Raw materials – Slide 3

Give the students a quick introduction to raw materials. Connect materials used in the game Minecraft with raw materials in real life. Continue with a thought that we need to find raw materials first before we can extract and mine them. This brings us to the exploration on the next slide.

Step 4:

Exploration - Minerals and Rocks – Slide 4

Before we can start with exploration, we need to know what we are looking for. Explain what minerals and rocks are. Emphasize that rocks consist of rock-forming minerals. Connect these real rock-forming minerals with Lego bricks. If we combine different Lego bricks representing minerals, we then get a rock.

First task: Give the worksheets, Lego bricks in bigger bags and real samples of the rock Gabbro to the students. Students build a rock from Lego bricks.

Step 5:

Exploration – Ore – Slide 5

Explain to the students what ore is, and that society needs minerals – ore minerals such as copper or lithium – for the modern way of life.

Second task: Instructions are similar like before but now they need to add red bricks that represent the ore mineral.

Step 6:

Mining – Slide 6

Give students a brief introduction to mining using slide 6.

Third task: Questions and Answers session (Q&A) about mining.

Show students the video about mining in the Minecraft BetterGeo (link to the video is in the presentation) or play the game yourself. Give comments and questions when you are showing the video or playing the game. Pause the video if needed.

During the video or the play-through, ask the following questions:

Use a magnetic compass as a tool for exploration. It helps to localize iron ore because it starts to react when you are close to the ore. Find iron ore.

O&A: At the iron ore site, ask students if they see the difference between the rock above (lighter and spotted) and iron ore (darker and striped).

• Mine some of the iron ore.

Q&A: What do the students see in the ground after mining? What can we do about it in the game? What can we do about it in real life?

• Go on to the processing of ore - to the smeltery.

Q&A: What is needed to start smelting? (hint: the source of heat).

• In this case, coal is already in the smeltery. Put the ore in the smeltery and close it. Look at the gas that comes out from the smeltery. Also, somewhere close by, ash will appear.

Q&A: Ask if the students think the gas and ash are good for the environment? What can we do about it in the game and what in real life?

• Show them the flue gas cleaner. It can be installed on the smeltery and prevents pollution from spreading.

Q&A: What happened to the gas now? Can we do something similar in real life?

• Open the smeltery and look at our smelted products. We get out iron which is a raw material. We also get out some by-products.

Step 7:

Processing – Slide 7

Briefly tell students how and where we can process ores.

Fourth, fifth and sixth tasks: These tasks contain math. Refresh mathematical concepts at the beginning of a specific task, if you think it is necessary. Every group gets one small bag with different amounts of red bricks (2, 4 or 8). Students need to follow the instruction on the worksheet.

Together check the results they obtained by groups (proportion and price of the ore). On the slides are animations and results for every different number of red bricks (2, 4 or 8). Talk about the various contents of ore minerals in the ore and when it is economically profitable to mine.

Step 8:

Processing – Slide 8

Briefly tell students what primary and secondary raw materials are and what is the main difference between them. Remind students about the processing in the earlier video.

Show students a video about copper disappearance. Discuss and analyze with students the importance of mining for modern society.