Promotional Activities

VIRTUALMINE AT THE STRZEGOM GRANITE FESTIVAL 2019

KGHM CUPRUM Ltd Research and Development Centre & Copper Museum in Legnica presented the VirtualMine educational tools at the Strzegom Granite Festival on June 14-16, 2019 in Strzegom, Poland.

The area around Strzegom is famous for its rich deposits of granite and basalt, materials used in construction, gravestones and sculpture. Strzegom Land Days have been organized in Strzegom since the post-war years. In 2011, two cultural events were combined, i.e. the Strzegom Land Days and the Stone Festival, taking the common name: Strzegom Granite Festival.

In 2019, as part of the VirtualMine Project promotion, the festival program has been joined by: mineral rinsing, workshops on construction of mining machines using Roboblocks, lectures on 'What is my house standing on? Geological location of Strzegom' and ‘Geological location of Lower Silesia', as well as the Multimedia Game ‘Life without raw materials’. The event was a great opportunity to carry out further educational activities on geology and mining, it also confirmed that the results of the VirtualMine Project, with a focus on copper, can also apply to other raw materials and activities within Wider Society Learning.

Wider Society Learning Workshop in Greece

The EIT RawMaterials Hub: Regional Center Greece , operated by ther School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering of NTUA, organised a Wider Society Learning Workshop in Athens, with participants from Greece, active in Raw Materials WSL Education, and partners from EIT RawMaterials. The workshop was held on May 30 at the Gaiorama museum, and the VirtualMine project as well as the permanent Roboblocks exhibition at the Gaiorama museum were presented to the participants.

Virtual Mine at the Athens Science Festival

The School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering of NTUA participated at Athens Science Festival in April 2019, presenting the VirtualMine Roboblocks to the visitors.

VirtualMine at the 5th Educational Robotics Contest in Greece

The School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering of NTUA supported a students' team at the 5th Educational Robotics Contest in Greece, held in February-March 2019 and organised by WRO Hellas. The Roboblocks of the VirtualMine project were displayed together with project flyers.

Science week workshops at CeDInt-UPM

Strojnica Gallery at Govce, Slovenia, open till June 10, 2018

Science week workshops at CeDInt-UPM took place in November 2018 . During these visits, the AR application for the project was described and shown to students (13-16 years old) as they also had the opportunity to navigate in VR inside the Marcelo Jorissen Mine.

ZAG, project partner of Virtual Mine, presented the VirtualMine project at the Visual Heritage EXPO 2018.

ZAG, project partner of VirtualMine, presented the "Razstava: Svetloba in barve v rudniku Sitarjevec" Exhibition at the MineraFest in Ljubljana, in October 2018. See more information

A night at the museum - Georama

The School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) celebrated the International Museum Day on Friday, May 18, 2018. People of all ages enjoyed a beautiful night at the Museum of Mineralogy, Georama and watched, with particular interest, the speech by I. Bassiotis "Chasing meteorites in Antarctica", after visiting the museum and experiencing the rich collection of mineral exhibits.

Jurski Par in Tango

In the Gallery of Contemporary Art Strojnica at Govce, a spectacular event took place on May 12th, 2018 with performance of Jure Tori, a member of the world-renowned Orleki group, and Jure Longyk, whom most people know from the popular music radio show Izštekani. Alja Ferme and Saša Živanović danced tango in the idyllic landscape, surrounded by mining heritage. The event was supported by the VirtualMine project.

The Golden Fleece between the Posavje Folds and the Sečovlje salt pans

Strojnica Gallery at Govce, Slovenia, open till June 10, 2018

The discovery and the use of mineral resources in the European territory go far back into the history of human development, but they are also present in the area between the Posavje Folds and the Sečovlje salt pans. In the past, the Posavje Folds were an important deposit site of metal minerals, which can still be found in the now-abandoned mines Sitarjevec and Padež. During the industrial revolution, coal mines in the Zasavje and Laško coal basins represented an important mineral resource, while for long centuries the strategic mineral resource in the Slovenian Istria has been salt, which was extracted in Strunjan and Sečovlje. Also, until the 1970s, Sečovlje was the home to the only black-coal mine in Slovenia.

After the mines were closed, what was left was a rich mining heritage, which is now discussed in the light of sustainable tourism and interpretation approaches. The latter also include 3D techniques, which are used within the VirtualMine project to present the lost village Govce in the Municipality of Laško as well as the mineral richness of selected examples of geological cultural heritage in a didactic manner, while the techniques are also used to approach to the understanding of the meaning of mineral resources in the past for the present by using art interpretation.

The symbolism of the Golden Fleece, which was brought to the region by the Argonauts on the Argo ship, depicts the truth and spiritual purity, which, in addition to comradeship and solidarity, has always been present among miners, and still touches us deeply in contact with the pearls hidden in the abandoned mine galleries and salt fields.

The Golden Fleece Movable exhibition was implemented by ZAG and supported by the VirtualMine Project