Primaries 1,2 & 3 thoroughly enjoyed their visit to the sand mine despite the rain!
Unfortunately we have no photographs of the older children who went into the mine itself - problems with the camera, perhaps next time! If we are lucky, we may be invited back next year...
Many thanks to Aiden, Lesley, Mervyn, Peter, John, Dougie and Ken for the time they spent with the children, explaining the workings of the mine and demonstrating how some of the machinery worked. The children also enjoyed the visit to the information room and the lab.
I have refrained from giving the pictures titles.....though some of them just beg for a witty caption. I wonder if any of the children or their parents can come up with some suitable titles for them? You can send them to me by e-mail.....click the link on the index page. Who knows....there may be a small reward for the best suggestions!
What the children thought:
A TRIP TO THE SAND MINE
When we got down to the mine office we went in to collect our hard hats and torches . When we were all set and ready to go we set off to go to the under ground tunnel. As we got near the tunnel there were two great big hills to walk up leading to the tunnel. On the last hill Mr Bell pointed out a big stone with fossils on it.
The entrance was huge because the diggers are. We were in the tunnel with our torches and Mrs Upstone had a light attached to her helmet and so did another mine worker. Mr Bell asked us all to turn our lights and we did and that was fun. I think the little ones would be glad that they did not come because you couldn’t see a thing in there without a light.
We stopped at a big stone and Mr Bell told us that it came from a volcano. We walked a little further and we saw a sort of machine, I don’t know what it did but it looked interesting.
When it was time to go back along the tunnel Craig made a bat noise and everybody thought it was a bat but Craig said it was him and every body was disappointed . When we came out of the tunnel Mrs Russell ran down to take two photos of us coming out of the tunnel.
We walked down and we met Peter and he took us up to the plant and told us his work was boring.He showed us the machines beside the plant. Once Peter had shown us everything, we walked down the metal steps. We were allowed to go on the digger in our twos and Mrs Russell took photos of us all on the digger. Earlier the little ones had had a picture sitting in the bucket of the digger we were on. We stayed in the digger for about fifteen or twenty minutes, it was really fun
The time went by and it was play time and we walked along to the office to give back our hats and torches and we were asked to go upstairs to see some things. We got there and there were lots of things to see. There was glass that was made from the sand at the mine. I liked the pictures of the children who are in high school now, it looked funny. We also saw two fossils, one of a starfish and one of a worm, both over ninety million years old, also a helmet that was used in the mine a long time ago. There a sparkly kind of stone as hard as a diamond.
It was time to go back to school, we ate our play pieces on the way back.Visit to the mine
At
half past nine we got into groups of two and started to make our way down to
the Mine. As soon as we got out of the school gates it started to rain. By the
time we had got down to the office we were soaked. We each got a helmet and a
torch. The wee ones didn’t get any because they weren’t going into the
tunnel. After everyone had got fitted with a hat, we set off to the entrance
of the tunnel. There was a really steep slope on the way and I nearly slipped
back down. There was wire on the cliffs to stop the rocks from falling.
When
we were entering the tunnel it was all dark and gloomy and it was really wet.
As we went further into the tunnel it became darker. Aiden told us all to put
our lights out and when we did it was really dark, I couldn’t see anything
except for Oskar’s flashing shoes. There were lots of deep puddles and most
of the sand was very sinky. There was a lot of cut off tunnels, maybe because
they were unstable or something. After we had got out of the tunnel it was
really light because our eyes had got used to the dark.
VISIT TO THE SAND MINE
When we got to the mine we all got hard hats and torches and we walked up a hill to get to one of the tunnels at the entrance
As we went in there was a cold draught . We all put on our torches. The sand was sinking, so we had to stay to the dry stuff. Most of the tunnels were blocked. We went half way down the tunnel then we came back.
We got our photos taken on a dumper, then we got shown the control room and we got to see the crusher. Then we went over to the office and got to see all the old photos and had our crisps. Then we went back to school.Trip To The Sand Mine
Today we went on a trip to the sand mine and it was really fun. When we got there we went into the office and got a torch and a helmet each. We were all going underground except for the little class, they went some where else. We had to walk up a big hill and when we got underground it was really scary. On the way up we saw some fossils. When we got underground there was a wall made of sand. When we got further on, we all stopped and switched off all the lights and it was really scary. When we got to the end it was the scariest bit, well I thought it was. On the way back, we heard a bat but at the end Craig said it was just him making noises like a bat. When we got out of underground, we walked down the big hill again and when we got to the end, we got our photo taken on a dumper and we got to go on a digger in too. After that we went to the place where Peter works and then after we had seen that we went upstairs in the office and saw a picture of the school. We also saw a star fish fossil and two helmets from around 1950 the fossils are 90 million years old.THE SAND MINE TRIP
At half past nine the school went to the sand mine for a school trip. The little ones explored the sand mine. The older ones went in the tunnel and explored it. There were some really cool things in it. We needed to use some hard hats and some torches to see where we are going. When we got in the tunnel it was pitch black when we got in. The man made us turn off our lights. It was really dark. You couldn’t see any body. We went half way then we turned back. On the way back Craig made a bat noise. When we got out we explored the sand mine. We got to see how things work. It was a good trip every one liked it.Our Visit To The Mine
At nearly half past nine in the morning of the Twenty Ninth of May, Lochaline Primary School walked to the Mine in pairs. Nearly as soon as we left the school the weather turned nasty and it poured down upon us.
The first thing we did when we got there, was get a hard hat and a torch. My hat was white and it kept wobbling about on my head, the torches didn’t look bright but once we got to the tunnels we found that they were actually quite bright. As soon as we reached the tunnel’s edge, we had to switch our torches on. Often as we went deeper and deeper into the Mine we found deepish puddles that we had to edge round. Sometimes Aiden asked us to switch our lights off, I don’t think I have been anywhere darker since I went down the Mine last time.
After we had come out of the tunnel, we looked at the lorries that take the sand out of the Mine to the machines that crush and clean the sand. The tyres of the lorries are about the same height as me! Another machine with big wheels is the Digger, we all got to look inside, it is very high off the ground for a vehicle.
We were also shown the plant where all of the machines are worked by buttons and switches. Before anything will start you have to sound an alarm. Gordon was told to press a button that made the crusher work.
One of the last things we did was to walk through the long shed where the sand goes along a conveyor-belt out to the ship. Once a ship didn’t dock properly and it knocked down part of the shed. I found out that they load 2,200tonnes into the ships and that it takes them 5 and a ½ hours to load a ship. I also found out that to make glass, you use 60% of broken glass, 30% of sand and 10% of soda. You then have to melt them altogether and it comes out like water.
The last thing we did was return our hats, we had already given back our torches. We also looked at some photographs taken the last time we came to the Mine, it was really hard to recognise some people. I had a fantastic time and hope that everyone else did too.