When Austin Cowan, business readiness manager at Newmont, paid a visit to his daughter's second grade class of gifted students, he thought he could provide an overview of geology and mining to support the current curriculum. The students were learning about the earth and its crust, how rocks are formed and other aspects of geology.
"While not a geologist myself, I love working with the kids and figured I knew enough to be dangerous and hopefully more than they did," Cowan quipped. He was surprised to learn six other classes were interested in his presentation, so about 160 students listened intently to his discussion on geology, minerals and mining.
"When I started the presentation, I asked how many kids wanted to be a geologist," he said. "Being a rather rowdy bunch, they responded with a rather loud chorus of laughter, cheers and boos. Some raised their hands, but they weren't sold on geology quite yet."
Cowan then displayed a photo album of pictures pertaining to anything geology-related, and explained what types of careers geologists worked in, what minerals are used for, how geologists find them and mining. He also showed pictures of drill rigs and helicopters for exploration, shovels and trucks for mining and beautiful mountain areas where Newmont had performed reclamation.
"The big excitement came when I showed them a video clip of a haul truck running over a pickup," Cowan said. "That drew a lot of laughs and cheers."
The group of students asked whether Newmont fills the pits back in when we are done, how we ensure the safety of miners around the big trucks (safety first at Newmont of course!) and who fixed the big trucks.
Thanks to Joe Rota, Pragna Bhakta and Marc LeVier, Cowan brought with him a variety of ore samples, including some containing gold, silver and copper.
"They were large samples that the kids could pick up, touch and feel, and name the rock type and how it was formed," he said. "I was also given bags full of smaller ore samples from our Phoenix operation for the students to take home with them. They all thought there was gold in them. I heard from a parent a few nights later that her son actually took it into the garage and smashed it with a hammer to try and get the gold out (a future mill operator?)."
By the end of the presentation, Cowan had convinced at least one boy to be a geologist.
"He told me so and the entire gymnasium witnessed it," he said. "Who knows, he may even go into metallurgy!"
