Golden job opportunities were amongst those showcased at Get Into Resources last month, with students exploring a variety of careers and study pathways within the resources industry.
Gold Industry Group team members with Ausdrill Non-Executive Director and Get Into Resources’ Guest Speaker Alex Atkins.
Held over three days at the North Metropolitan TAFE campus in Northbridge, Get Into Resources saw almost 400 year 10 students from 13 schools across Western Australia attend the annual careers event.
By giving the students an opportunity to experience the resources industry via interactive workshops, in-class exercises and one-on-one conversations with real industry workers; the event inspired future career journeys in a practical and interesting way.
With up to 9 sessions a day, the students were exposed to a wide variety of activities, including coding, virtual welding, reef and mine mapping, mines rescue equipment and an underground mining experience.
As guest speaker on Day 1, Ausdrill Non-Executive Director Alex Atkins shared some of her experiences with the students, including the importance of recognising the range of roles that are and one day will be available in the mining sector, and the similar diversity of people and their strengths or skills that will be required to fill them.
“If we can attract a diverse array of people from all sorts of backgrounds, different cultures, different genders and different disciplines, then we can bring out the best in mining,” she said.
For those students unsure of their career direction at 15 years of age, Ms Atkins assured them that a career in the resources industry can change and adapt over time.
“It's okay to change your mind... being a multi-disciplinarian opens up all sorts of different opportunities,” she said.
Ms Atkins put the potential of their careers into a simpler perspective, by reminding students to consider the importance of the resources industry to their current everyday lives, including the products they would otherwise be without were it not for the mining of raw materials.
“We need mining, without mining we can’t have phones, planes, cars, computers, video games; we can’t have power, we can’t do these things. Our lives depend on the products that come out of mining,” she said.
Within the expo area, the Gold Industry Group's booth showcased the Perth and Kalgoorlie #heartofgold Discovery Trails, the GIG School Program, #DidYouKnow-styled fact sheets about the uses of gold and more. In preparation for the upcoming launch of the Gold Jobs website, students were able to register to be the first to know when the site is live, accessing information on career pathways and study options.
Teachers accompanying their students were also able to take away GIG’s science and HASS lesson plans created in conjunction with Earth Science WA and Educated by Nature, linked to the Australian Curriculum, available for years 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10.
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