Banks Mining helping to build careers in mineral extraction
Newcastle University students visit Shotton and Brenkley Lane to learn about future career opportunities
NEWCASTLE University students have been learning more about how they might build a future career in the extractive industry during visits to two North East surface mines.
Around 40 second-year earth sciences and environmental science students visited Banks Mining’s Shotton and Brenkley Lane surface mines, near Cramlington, to see how modern opencast coal sites operate.
The student group also examined the work carried out on site by Banks’ team of geologists and engineers, and learnt about the ways in which land is restored and landscaped during and after mining operations.
The visitors were given a tour of both surface mine sites to view how the health, safety and environmental protection measures that Banks Mining put in place work in practice.
The students were also given presentations on Banks’ other operations in the area, including the creation of the nearby Northumberlandia landform, which was formed using 1.5 million tonnes of carefully selected stone, clay and soil taken from Shotton surface mine.
Banks Mining say they hope the site visits gave the university students an insight into how the knowledge they are developing on their courses might be applied in their future careers.
Feedback from some of the students, who came from across the UK, as well as from Europe and China, described the tour as the ‘best field trip they have ever done’.
Dr Martin Cooke from the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Newcastle University, who led the visit, said: ‘The students we brought along are at the stage of their university careers where they’re starting to think about life after education and part of our role is to try to show them how their academic skills will be applicable to the jobs they might eventually do.’
Jeannie Kielty, community relations manager for Banks Group, added: ‘We’re very pleased to have been able to host such an enthusiastic group at Shotton and Brenkley Lane, and to have given them a first-hand view of how we work.’
