Twenty-four students from schools throughout the metropolitan region attended our most recent camp.
We were indeed very fortunate to stay at the Talison Lithium Caladenia Village camp for the duration of the camp which was just as well considering on the Thursday it rained and rained and rained! The students enjoyed the exceptional facilities and hospitality afforded by both the Talison and ESS staff, including a special pizza night for us all.
We visited two hosts for the first time, Tronox (Australind Pigment Plant and Wonnerup mine-site) and International Graphite in Collie. Other visits included Byrnecut Mining, Talison Lithium, Premier Coal, WA School of Mines and Alcoa.
The visit voted most popular was the Tronox Pigment Plant at Australind closely followed by the Byrnecut Mining visit, but all visits were very worthwhile and for the chaperones we learnt a lot as well.
It was great to see what International Graphite are doing in Collie, where they are importing graphite ore from Africa and refining it into a final product for export. This is contrary to most of our mining industry endeavours. The personal highlight for our lead chaperone Barry Upton was the visit to Tronox Wonnerup operations and their Golden Gecko award winning Ludlow forest rehabilitation area. It was truly great to see a renewed Tuart forest that has significantly greater plant diversity now than prior to mining, (20 species), along with young Tuart trees that can only germinate in nature after a fire.
Based on our post camp surveys the students overall rating for the camp was 4.85/5 and similarly parents rated the camp 4.78/5 based on the question, “Spoken positively about the camp”.
Our next camp is scheduled for the 5th to the 8th of October and already we have a very strong level of interest.
Make no mistake these camps are proving highly influential both in interesting students in future mining industry careers but also in improving perceptions of the industry from students, parents and educators.
