Rebecca

Hello! My name’s Rebecca Gardner and I’m the Learning Officer at Geevor Tin Mine. I’ve been here for a year now – before that I graduated from university with a Natural Sciences degree, finishing in Geology, but I live down in Cornwall and went to St. Ives School and Truro College, so I’m glad to come back to my roots!

The main part of my job is to deliver the educational workshops we offer at Geevor which includes taking mining artefacts into schools, encouraging the use of our other developed resources and making sure we don’t lose any students down the mine!

But when there isn’t a school coming in what do I do??

Well, where do I start… the whole educational program we offer is always being developed to make it more relevant to the schools and other groups that use them, which requires all the accompanying resources to also be developed, maintained as well as promoted so that people know what we actually offer here. This means developing our information pack, writing press releases, attending network meetings, creating displays for conferences and making leaflets/posters/mailouts for events, etc… I’m linking up with colleges and universities to encourage using Geevor in field courses and for student work/project placements. We’ve just opened a new museum, which I was giving advice for and helping with planning and setting up. It’s also part of my role to organise various events on site throughout the year to encourage those who wouldn’t normally consider coming to a tin mine for a day out! I am continually trying to improve the visitor’s experience of Geevor so that they have a great learning experience and would want to come again – or at least recommend it to others.

Also, as with most jobs, there’s quite a bit of (necessary, but time-consuming) admin involved!

But I think the best and most fun part of my job is when the students come in – these start from 3yr olds through to Primary, Secondary and, actually, the whole age range! They all have a different perspective on what I’m showing them, and it is really rewarding to see visitors enjoying themselves and being enthused about our tin mining heritage. This is probably why I enjoy primary ages most because they so openly show their enjoyment – getting older students interested in our inspirational surroundings is more of a challenge but also more of a victory when it happens!

So basically it’s the enjoyable parts of teaching without the classroom (and the marking!).

One Response to “Rebecca”

Leave a Reply