Key Stage One

It's a Hard Rock Life

This workshop looks at the roles that children, men and women had in the mining industry and how it affected their lives. We compare Victorian period mining with mining in the modern age

Aims of this workshop

• To give a general background to Cornwall’s industrial heritage, using Geevor as a case study
• To see how industrial techniques have developed over time by comparing Victorian and Modern mining
• To consider the working conditions and social roles of children, men and women in mining

What happens on the day?

Our Mining History workshop is the most popular workshop requested by school groups for their visit to Geevor. It is an engaging overview of this once vital Cornish industry and can be adapted by group leaders to complement a range of different topics at school.

The workshop activities on the day depend on whether your group have received a preparatory Outreach session before their site visit.

If no Outreach was received before the site visit, the workshop takes the form of a mini-Outreach session onsite. This consists of artefact handling and dressing-up to vividly explain the rock-to-tin process, as well as comparing modern and Victorian mining and the people who worked them.

If Outreach is received before visit, we explore further surface buildings  onsite and the workshop takes the form of an extended site tour. This maximises time outside of the classroom and gives additional insights into this industrial world, embedding the vocabulary and concepts already covered in an Outreach session.

Main themes: History, Geography, Science, D&T, PSHE

ACCOMPANYING RESOURCES

Outreach

For this workshop, the standard Outreach session would be suitable for this age group and available to local groups. A charge to cover petrol costs applies.

Loans Box

To complement this workshop, the Mining History Loan Box introduces the basics of hard rock mining through both replica and genuine objects, photos and information.