Elementary school students operate haul truck simulators. Armed with toothpicks and paper clips, kids mine chocolate chips out of cookies. Girl Scouts don glittery hard hats, pan for golden beads, and compete in fire extinguisher simulator contests. Boy Scouts -- whose organization recently introduced a new “Mining in Society” badge and whose new national jamboree home is reclaimed mining land near West Virginia’s stunning New River Gorge -- identify minerals found in their toys, tools and homes.

Those were some of the 2013 Aha! moments in classrooms and at science fairs throughout southern Arizona that earned the UA student chapter of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration a top national award. The society’s Minerals Education Coalition has honored the chapter for its K-12 outreach. The student chapter received the award during the 2014 SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit in Salt Lake City February 23-26.

“They’re quality students, and they make a quality impression on the young people,” said Pam Wilkinson, adviser for the chapter and outreach coordinator with the UA’s Lowell Institute for Mineral Resources. “They speak the same language.”

Members of the mining student group volunteer their time and talent so the next generation will know the importance of mining, and maybe even become mining engineers or geologists themselves.

“We let them know that mining is important in their lives, that without it we would not have cars, cell phones, computers -- the list is endless,” said Danielle Taran, UA SME chapter president. “We teach them that we need mining.”

For the middle school and high school students, there are plenty of stories to be had about high-tech engineering internships and adventurous jobs worldwide in an industry facing a shortage of engineers. And it is not just the kids whose eyes are opened. Teachers benefit from the chapter’s hard work as well.

“Many of the teachers did not know a lot about mining,” said Ashlyn Hooten, chapter secretary, who along with her fellow chapter members joined an assembly line of industry professionals in Phoenix last fall putting together hundreds of mineral kits for teachers who would be attending the regional National Science Teachers Association.

Beyond the educational aspects of the chapter’s work, there’s also the volunteer piece.

“It provides the students with an opportunity to give back,” said Wilkinson. “It’s another part of being a whole person. It reinforces that we aren’t just in whatever we’re doing for ourselves. We’re in it to make the world a better place. We’re in it to make it a safer, healthier place to be.”

H.L. Boling Receives SME Health and Safety Award

Also honored at the SME conference was H.L. Boling, who teaches mining safety courses at the UA. Boling received the society’s first Health and Safety Individual Excellence Award.

Known the world over as “Mr. Safety,” Boling is a certified mine safety professional who has been in the industry for nearly half a century. His steadfast belief in attainable, sustainable, safe production with heightened emphasis on zero incidents, zero production concerns, zero discipline matters and zero citations has earned Boling 83 personal awards and 178 certificates of merit.

A top mining safety award given annually by the International Society of Mine Safety Professionals, or ISMSP, honors Boling’s contributions to the industry. The H. L. Boling Above and Beyond the Call of Duty Award, which the UA mining and geological engineering department has received in the past, is presented to organizations and companies that demonstrate outstanding dedication to safety and health excellence, and extraordinary leadership skills as part of achieving an exemplary safety and health record, or that have made an outstanding contribution assisting the mining industry with safety and health issues. Boling is a founder of the International Society of Mine Safety Professionals and its executive director and awards chairman.