Spring Break Rocks!

While it really does feel nice to take a break from the drama of 4th grade, I am talking about ACTUAL rocks. The kind that Nevada specializes in! It's Mineral World here in the great empty.

I was invited by a co-worker to attend the Nevada Mineral Association's teacher classes this week. On Tuesday we attended classes that were oriented to our grade levels, and on Wednesday we WENT ON A FIELD TRIP!!

The classes I went to included learning all about the impact, economically, on the state of Nevada of the mining industry. As we listened to the variety of jobs, and what some of the earnings were, many of us looked at each other, and decided maybe we were in the wrong career! Maybe we ought to move to Elko and drive an ore truck. It pays a lot more than we get as teachers, and the aggravation level looked much lower.

I also learned about identifying minerals. This was something I taught years ago in Maryland, and we had little boxes of rocks with which we learned about the streak, and the hardness, and the ph composition. This was similar, and we all received two boxes of rocks to take back to our classrooms. One is minerals, and we practiced identifying them. Another box contains rocks...yes they are different. The rocks are composites of different kinds of minerals (some) and other rocks are examples of the three types of rocks: igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. We also have lesson ideas of how to use them in our classrooms. So much fun!

But the real fun was Wednesday when we picked up our box lunches, and our backpack of PPE (personal protective equipment) and boarded a tour bus for our field trips. I chose option #1 because it took me to the mountains near our home. We first went to the gypsum mine that is out in the desert behind the mountain to the east of our house. When we got there, we got out of the bus, dressed in our reflective vests, hard hats, and safety glasses, and walked over to the edge of the parking lot/factory yard.

We were now overlooking a dug out piece of desert, that looks just like all the land around here. But as you look carefully at the "dirt" around you, you realize that it is glittering. We were on the edge of the gypsum mine. It is essentially an open-pit (but not deep like you might have seen at Bingham Copper Mine in Utah.) There is a long, long conveyor belt that is in the middle of it, and that leads to the factory about 200 yards behind where we were standing. As we all lined up near the edge of the pit, the guide from the factory pointed out a section of the desert we were observing, and asked us to watch closely while they prepared the explosion. Then, the "master-blaster" was introduced, and he communicated with someone else, and right in front of us, explosions went off, a two second delay later we heard the noise. We watched as a vast section of ground was puffed into a huge dust ball, and then settled back down into rubble. It was COOL!! (and now many of us want to do that job, just for name...)

After the explosion and dust settled, scooper tractors got started loading the rock debris onto the conveyor belt, where it rolled on into the building where it would get washed and cooked until all that was left was pure gypsum ready to be mixed into batches with the other stuff that they put in the middle of wall board.

We walked for almost a mile as we followed our guide through the sheet rock/wall board factory. They have the longest conveyor belts I've ever seen! It was like being inside one of those old black and white movies I used to see in Jr. High, with the narrator explaining the factory workers' jobs as the camera took us through the manufacturing plant. It was really, really interesting! 

The most hilarious part of our tour was right at the beginning. There are huge rolls of brown paper that are fed into a conveyor that end up being one side of the sheet rock. We were watching a roll as it was gradually going up a slope into the apparatus, as our guide was pointing out the process, when we all noticed that one edge of the paper was torn (about six inches) with a fold-over in a right angle. Then, another section came up the slope that way, too, and as he turned to see what we were looking at, our tour guide suddenly shouted, "OH, S#!$!!" and took off running. He was yelling a guy's name, and then we saw another fellow running up some stairs and rushing to do something to that paper. We teachers all turned to each other and burst out laughing! After our guide returned, he apologized for his rushing off and blurting out, but we assured him that it was one of the best parts of our tour!

After we walked our legs off at the sheet rock factory/gypsum mine, we ate our lunches in the bus as we drove to a near-by geologic formation where lots of people went hill-climbing and rock hunting. I pretty much sat at the bottom of the mountain and looked at rocks there. My feet might have made it up the mountain, but then I'd have just had to stay there. Going back down wouldn't have been possible.

Let me just say that it was two days well-spent, and next Spring Break, I plan to sign up again! The Nevada Mining Association has my vote for best Spring Break outing ever---it totally rocked!!