“A mina contamina” is a puppet show based on the original children’s book. The show tells the story of a drop of rain water that becomes polluted by heavy metals as it falls into an underground mine. The story is told dialogically, in a conversation between the drop and a White wagtail bird that is warned of the perils of drinking water from the stream, learning about the processes of acid mine drainage and bioaccumulation, but also of the human greed and unsustainability behind mining pollution.

 

The mining lobby in Galicia targets schools with the goal of conditioning youth to become uncritical and favourable to massive mining. In January 2019 the mining lobby released short curriculum guides for kindergarten, primary school and secondary school; this included activity books, videos, and an illustrated story-book (“O tesouro das estrelas”). While social opposition to destructive unsustainable mining is growing, little was being done to bring the issue into learning environments. The Droplet and Wagtail’s Tailings Tale is part of a set of materials that were produced to counter this large-scale misinformation campaign.

 

More about this project and additional materials here.