Tin, tungsten and tantalum - essential minerals for the future

The new ELI today continues our series - 'Essential Minerals for the Green Revolution – 6 “The Three Ts”; Tin, Tungsten and Tantalum'.

This ELI contrasts good practice in extracting essential minerals with illegal mining. It also gives a brief survey of world production of the “Three Ts”.

Go to our Earth Materials Minerals category to find many related activities.

River erosion - potholes

'A bucket for a pothole: visualising past processes by calculation: modelling river pothole-formation by calculation – thinking through the assumptions.'

This activity seeks to mimic the mode of formation of potholes in order to provoke calculation and discussion around the processes involved.

Other ELIs involving some maths can be found in our Cross-Category topics. 

Cobalt, mined by children

Today, we continue with our series on 'Essential minerals for the Green Revolution with number 5, Cobalt; mined by children'.

This ELI raises awareness of the main trade in cobalt and the use of child labour in cobalt mines in the main producing country. Worldwide demand for cobalt and related metals is rising rapidly as new technologies are embraced.

Related activities can be found in 'Minerals' in our Earth Materials category.

Following our astronomical umbrella, we now have 'Craters on the Moon: why are the Moon’s craters such different shapes and sizes'.

This ELI is an investigation into the factors which affect the dimensions of craters produced by the impact of external bodies, such as meteorites.

Related activities can be found in our Earth in Space category.

Using an astronomical umbrella to understand the night sky

Our new ELI today:  'Demonstrate the apparent rotation of the sky with an astronomical umbrella; using a simple model to show the difference in the appearance of the night sky seen from Earth or from space'.

The simulation of the Earth’s rotation with a globe and the astronomical umbrella allows the students to see the same phenomenon from different points of view and facilitates the description of the apparent motion of the night sky.

This is our first ELI in the 'Astronomy' category of 'Earth in Space'. It was sent to us by a friend and colleague and supporter of Earthlearningideas. We hope it may be the first of a series? Remember to send us your innovative teaching ideas for whatever age group.