Falconbridge Nikkelverk the company and the city
Purpose and objectives of the initiative
The project will:
1. Use a local corner stone company as a starting point for the teaching of chemistry and environment, as well as for information about different occupations.
2. Increase the pupils’ understanding of the factors that influence the establishment of industry and the significance industry for the development within a region.
3. Let the pupils get insight into how a company of a considerable size is organized and what kind of competence is necessary to run the company.
4. Let the pupils get into contact with the community out of school by first being visited in class, and then visiting a company and gaining insight into how working life in a factory can be.
5. Let the pupils get a thorough knowledge of a school subject and produce something that can be useful for others.
6. Relate different school subjects to industry, which is among the intentions in the Norwegian national curriculum.
Main Partners
1. Samfundets skole, primary and secondary school (grade 1-10) in the center of Kristiansand city.
2. Falconbridge Nikkelverk, Kristiansand city. A part of the Canadian company Falconbridge Nickel Mines Limited.
Main beneficiaries
1. Mainly the pupils in the ninth grade who get a part of their education related to a local company as shown before.
2. Falconbridge Nikkelverk that can use the pupils’ work in their information work toward the local community.
3. Pupils in other schools that can gain an understanding of a factory’s place in the local community.
Main contributors
Falconbridge Nikkelverk and Samfundets skole
Essential elements
Investigations of the environment
- For a number of years the school has carried out systematic investigations of the local environment led by a teacher, Jon Karlsen. A priority area for the school has been the Kristiansand basin, through participation in the Coastwatch program. The school has recorded the development for more than 10 years and intends to follow up this work in order to register variations in species and the disseminations. The intention is to let the students get some ideas about what the companies and the society can do together in order to reduce the damages that might be caused by the industry.
Chemistry
Through a foundation course in chemistry, the pupils will:
- work with model experiments that illustrate processes at Falconbridge
- gain insight into the fact that the electro-metallurgical industry produces material which is needed in a modern industrial society
End product
During the school year 1999-2000 the students in 9th grade worked in teams for a long time on a presentation through a booklet, “What do they produce at Falconbridge”,
This project represented Norway in the CEFIC Science Education Award 2000 and attained third price. (CEFIC: European Chemical Industy Council)
Careers information:
Throughout the school year 2000-2001, Jon Karlsen led a pilot project involving analysis by students of the company's significance for the local community. Experiences from this pilot project indicate that the school needs a closer collaboration with the company on this theme, f. ex. let the students interview persons with different occupations within the company.
Internet site:
The booklet produced by the students has been laid out on Internet and will be augmented periodically by studies of other aspects of the company, in order of their completion by the students.
The school has outlined a unified plan for collaboration comprising various aspects, and a new agreement is being worked out between the school and the company extending the original collaboration setup.
Main factors of its success
- Connecting theoretical school studies with production in the local community.
- Several curriculum subjects are seen as a natural whole.
- The students produce something which others need.
- The Students are given sufficient time for in-depth studies.
Assessment/evaluation process and evidence of its strength
- Teacher observations during the chemistry project:
- The students are able to stay concentrated and to develop a natural relationship to a relatively difficult theoretical subject matter since it is related to the local environment. After some time, some students became so familiar with the chemical formulas that they didn't see any point in writing out which materials the formulas represented. One can just read it out of the formula!
- The process demands that the students be given sufficient time to work with the material. They must be given the opportunity to both read and interpret the chemical symbols and equations and express themselves through them.
Falconbridge Nikkelverk use the booklet written by the young students when 9th graders from other schools in the region come to visit Falconbridge.
Number of years the program has been in existence and growth since inception
- The Coastwatch program has been running since 1990.
- Studies of the chemical compounds and processes was developed during the school year 1999-2000 and has been repeated twice since then.
- The study of Falconbridge as an employer is being developed and will be integrated on the Internet site during the autumn of 2002.
- Impact
Federation of Norwegian Process Industy ranks the project as one of the ten best partnerships between a school and a chemical process plant in Norway. This project will be used by the federation to improve partnerships agreements.
Potential replication and scale of the initiative
No extension to other schools or areas has been planned as yet.
Name and contact information for an underwriter who validates your application
Ms Ragnhild Aamot, Norwegian Society of Chartered Engineers, Oslo (ragnhild.aamot@nif.no)
Mr Morten Allum, Federation of Norwegian Process Industry, Oslo (morten@pil.no)
Author: Svein H. Torkildsen, teacher
Contact information:
Adress: Samfundets skole
Kristian IV gt 65
4614 Kristiansand
Norway
Phone number: +47 38 12 57 04
Fax number +47 38 12 57 38
e-mail: h-torkil@online.no