Year 13 Economic students recently conducted a field trip to Oceana’s gold and silver mine in Waihi. As part of their economics course, students are required to study market failure. Students gained realistic insights into a contentious issue and were able to analyse the positive and negative effects of the mine’s production (dust, noise, water, explosion vibrations). They explored policies (solutions) to internalise these spill-over effects on third parties like the local residents.

Students were able to witness a working mine in action. They enjoyed a three hour tour of both the open cut and underground mine network and felt ‘rather wealthy’ holding a nugget of gold.