Helping King Edward Mine Museum explore sustainability and drive positive behaviour change

When you think of sustainability, you may not think of things like history, heritage and culture, but these themes are very much central valuable social angles that complement the environmental ones. To me, museums and heritage sites alongside other historical and cultural things like music and television, hold huge potential for driving changes in how wider society thinks and acts - if we are to change the world for the better, it’s going to require changes in hearts and minds as well as products and services.

What did I do?

Last Spring, I connected with the team at the King Edward Mine Museum (‘KEMM’) - an educational attraction situated amongst the restored buildings of the South Condurrow mine, which was active during the 1800’s. It is situated near the Cornish town of Troon, and atop of the Great Flat Lode - a very long and very charismatically flat tin deposit.

KEMM’s Chair of Trustees and two education officers wanted to create a refreshed walking trail handout which allowed visitors to learn more about the bountiful nature on the site as well as wider sustainability considerations. As part ofmy consultancy services, I reviewed the museum’s existing handout, met with volunteers to learn from their expertise in mining history and local biodiversity, guided the team through some additional key sustainability themes, and linked KEMM with Falmouth University’s illustration and graphics departments to scope opportunities for students to create the new resource.

The final product I proposed was a student-designed walking trail map, with an ambition to also create complementary physical signage around the site, focused around information on three themes.

 

What were my highlights of the new walking trail?

• Connecting people to local heritage - the site’s architecture, the mining processes that were carried out in times gone by, and the influence that mining had on local communities.
• Highlighting the value of natural spaces - even the most dirty, destructive places can transform into something rich and beautiful with time and a helping hand from us.
• Encouraging critical, future thinking - in an age where we are heavily reliant on tin and other materials extracted through mining, for our furniture, buildings and electric devices, what sustainability challenges do current practices present, and how can we play our part in creating a future where mining places ecological and social factors more centrally?

 

Extract from ‘The Future of Mining’ section in the new resource:

“…Cornish Lithium is in the process of exploring several sites across the county for lithium in geothermal waters, rather than in solid rock. Lithium, found in granite rocks as well as geothermal waters, is essential for producing rechargeable batteries, the basis for so many modern day items from mobile phones to computers and electric cars; the global demand is expected to at least double between now and 2030. This new extraction approach will not only improve our resilience and security, given the UK is currently fully dependent on lithium imports, but also reduce overall water consumption compared to traditional methods, and potentially harness significant amounts of low- carbon geothermal energy to heat local homes.

Can you make a list of all the electronic appliances in your home?”

What can anyone take away from this?

When we think about the sustainability impacts of our workplace or activities, it’s often the physical, material things that come to our mind; the energy demands of a museum, what materials we require for a renovation, or how we might maintain and improve the quality of a patch of greenspace. Less often do we consider how our organisation or the activities we undertake already - or could potentially - influence people’s thinking and actions.

Questioning how we could positively influence people’s mindsets, behaviours and drive wider cultural change is arguably even more important than the material changes we make as individuals or organisations when we’re creating a sustainable future.

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