Tips & Ideas on Gold Mining Dioramas
Gold mining is a pursuit with high risks and variable rewards. Its often dramatic history and increasingly complex extraction sites provide ample subjects suitable for educational dioramas. Take tips and inspiration from past and present mining techniques, whether you are assembling a shoebox diorama for a 7th grade history class assignment, a full size diorama for a regional history museum or a technical diorama for an engineering class.
Other People Are Reading
-
Model a Photo
-
Model your gold mining diorama after one of the historical photos taken of the early days of mining. For example, you could depict a scene from the California gold rush of the 19th century, complete with a six-man crew working a "long tom" river soil straining device. Alternately, you could build a diorama bringing to life a scene from a modern gold mine, like the Mponeng mine in South Africa.
Cross Section
-
Depict a cross section of a gold mining operation to give viewers a comprehensive view of how the process works. The cross section approach works particularly well if you are focusing on underground gold mining rather than panning or sluicing. A cross section of a gold mining operation should be split by a horizontal divider denoting above and below ground level. Paint the background of the part above ground blue with white clouds and stud the divider with fake plants or sculpted terrain. Paint the background of the part below ground black to evoke the utter darkness within an unlit mine.
-
Sluice Model
-
Sluicing was a low tech gold mining method. Build a gold mining diorama using the pump from a desktop fountain to construct a moving model of the sluicing approach to gold mining. Construct a riverbed with plastic, epoxy and rocks mounted in a thick painted sheet of foam. Arrange a scale model sluice -- operated by model prospectors -- in the tiny river. Conceal and secure the pump and make sure anything that the water will touch is waterproof.
Pyrite
-
Imbue your gold mining diorama with a touch of verisimilitude by using iron pyrite, or "fool's gold," as a substitute for the real thing. For example, if you are building a diorama showing an early California gold rush prospector panning in a stream, sprinkle tiny glittering chunks of pyrite in the stream bed. Real gold flakes would add an extra dose of realism to your diorama, but pyrite does no put as big a dent in the diorama budget.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
