Mangoola Mine is providing a real-life example of a sustainable biome as part of St Joseph’s High School students’ Year 9 Geography studies when they visit the mine in August and September with the Upper Hunter Mining Dialogue’s School Mine Tours Program.

With the first tour completed on August 26, about 125 students will visit the mine over three tours.

As part of their Geography studies, the students are studying sustainable biomes for which Mangoola’s rehabilitation program provides a real-life demonstration.

A biome is a region that has a certain climate and specific types of living things – plants and animals that have traits to help them survive in their particular biome.

As well as explaining to students the entire mining process from the exploration phase and how and why mining occurs and its impacts and benefits, the tour guided by Mangoola environmental scientists details how rehabilitation aims to recreate the original biome through the shaping of land to the original and surrounding land-form and planting native species aimed at sustainability and attracting native fauna.

During the excursion, the students have to collect data and sketch the Mangoola site as part of a geography course assessment.

The Dialogue’s School Mine Tours Program is offered to all Year 5 and Year 9 students in the Singleton-Muswellbrook-Aberdeen school catchment.