At over 600 feet below the earth’s surface, where it is always 68 degrees, students from AP Environmental Science and Geology as well as Saudi Arabian scholars visited the Strataca Salt Mine. This mine is home to the Hutchinson Salt Company and moves around 500,000 tons of salt, primarily for road use, each year. The mine is also home to Underground Vaults and Storage, where many documents and Hollywood movie props can be safely stored.

Leslie Campbell, biology teacher, explained that this field trip allowed students to see what they were learning about in person. The students also heard how the mine was formed and how it fits into life. The tour also featured a ride on a tram through the dark, where at the end visitors can pick up their own pieces of salt to take home.

Photo courtesy of Leslie Campbell

“[I liked] the dark ride that goes with it that takes you back into the mine,” Campbell said. “… you get to see features that you don’t see in the general part and I really like seeing some of those features deeper into the mine.”

For the scholars visiting from Saudi Arabia, getting to see a salt mine was a life changing experience.

“I’ve never been to the salt mines ever,” Abdulla Kensarah, a Saudi Arabian biology teacher, said. “I think it’s a good experience for me when I go into salt mines and see what they have underground.”

Not many people ever have the opportunity to see how and where salt is formed, so this allowed the students and scholars to go deeper for information that may not have been in the textbooks.

“I’m really thankful for the teacher and the school,” Kensarah said. “They give me this opportunity to go to the salt mine and I think this gave me more experience about what I bring back to my country.”