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Mining industry receives an increasing attention in green energy transition technologies in the U.S. However, little information is available regarding how the U.S. mining engineering education, particularly hard rock mining, is prepared to meet with the industry needs. This study summarizes a survey with an aim to understand the industry perspectives. The survey consisted of both closed- and open-ended questions. The survey results showed that the industry is concerned with a shortage of qualified graduates from the current U.S. hard rock mining engineering education system. The qualifications of the current education system need to be improved include engineering sciences underlying mining methods, mining design experience, mining feasibility study, the connection between theory and practice, and understanding the overall mining operation. The future desired qualifications were also suggested. Notably, the most desired ones in the next five years include an ability to acquire and apply new knowledge as needed and sufficient field experience. The survey participants, regardless of the nature of their affiliated mining companies, unanimously recommended that the collaborations between the industry and academia in the U.S. should be enhanced. Based on the survey results, the study concluded with four recommendations: (1) involve more multiple stakeholders in reforming mining education programs, (2) reinforce field experience as a key part of mining engineering programs, (3) enhance a closer collaboration between academia and industry, and (4) integrate emerging technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence/virtual reality) guided by pedagogical theories into new mining engineering curriculums.
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Inclusive Urban Mining: An Opportunity for Engineering Education
With the understanding that the mining industry is an important and necessary part of the production chain, we argue that the future of mining must be sustainable and responsible when responding to the increasing material demands of the current and next generations. In this paper, we illustrate how concepts, such as inclusiveness and the circular economy, can come together in new forms of mining—what we call inclusive urban mining—that could be beneficial for not only the mining industry, but for the environmental and social justice efforts as well. Based on case studies in the construction and demolition waste and WEEE (or e-waste) sectors in Colombia and Argentina, we demonstrate that inclusive urban mining could present an opportunity to benefit society across multiple echelons, including empowering vulnerable communities and decreasing environmental degradation associated with extractive mining and improper waste management. Then, recognizing that most engineering curricula in this field do not include urban mining, especially from a community-based perspective, we show examples of the integration of this form of mining in engineering education in first-, third- and fourth-year design courses. We conclude by providing recommendations on how to make inclusive urban mining visible and relevant to engineering education.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1743749
- PAR ID:
- 10479598
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Mining
- Volume:
- 3
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2673-6489
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 284 to 303
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/mining3020018
