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Activities for pages 10 and 11 of Minerals Downunder Student book:
Using the Types of Mining Jigsaw Matrix to review the types of mining and environmental issues raised. Students in small groups can discuss the likely impact of the different types of mining on the environment as well as any methods of environmental management they are aware of.
This text has a patterned structure of genres. As an introductory activity, students could explore the roles of the heading and sub-headings. They would need to identify the function of the major heading (to predict what the rest of the text is about) and then the sub-headings (to predict what the paragraphs under each are about).
As with other sections, discuss the role of the vusual texts and the inserted environmental policy and report. Discuss with the students the role that all of these parts play in realising the overall purpose of the text.
Following on from the nominalisation activity in Nonimalisation-Tranformation of Language, discuss the role of nominalisation in the headings for this Environmental Management section. Jointly identify the nominalisations in the headings, including the inserted reports and captions. One heading - Water does not have a nominalisation eg Water Conservation. In pairs, students could identify other nominalisations that are prevalent in this text.
Environmental management is presented in this section from the minerals industry's point of view. Discuss the various ways the text positions the reader to see that minerals companies are environmentally responsible. A context for presenting other points of view could be set up at this stage. This could involve students engaging in a debate where they take up a position as one of the following: a pastoralist, an indigenous person, an environmentalist, an unemployed mine worker or the chief executive of a mining company. Students should access a range of resources (internet, reference books, brouchures, newspapers) in order to build their knowledge from these different perspectives.
