Thursday, June 4, 2015

 

 

 

 

Today at about 9:00 to 9:15 we went over the agenda and we wrote questions about what we wanted to know about the Red Hills Lignite Coal mine in Ackerman, Mississippi and we wrote a question about what our students will ask about the mine.  At about 9:15 we rode to the Red Hills mine.  Jeremy drove us to the mine.  Rebecca McGrew, an Environmental Manager did the PowerPoint and the lab with us.  We took a tour of the mine and we can back to the learning center (mine) and did a lab.  The title of the lab was, Porosity, Permeability and Moisture Retention.  I learn that porosity is void volume/ total volume.  and permeability is the ability of a group of sediments to transmit fluid.  I hypothesized that the gravel is more porous and the sand is less porous.  After the experiment, clay has the highest porosity (absorbed more water), peat, gravel, pea gravel and sand had the lowest porosity.  I learn if a substance has a high porous, then it has a low permeability.  Therefore, clay had the lowest permeability (absorb less water) followed by:  peat, gravel, pea gravel and sand had the highest permeability.   We got back to MSU at about 4:30.  Today was a good day.  THANK YOU FOR THIS GREAT WORKSHOP