Raw materials for our everyday life in the context of museum education

The need of raw materials for our society and our everyday life steadily increased during the last decades. In particular, the technological development demands for a secure supply as well as increasingly more metals. Therefore, a secured supply of raw materials is crucial for the economy worldwide. The supply risks of metals due to limited availability from only few countries became a political debate during the last decade, .i.e. defining the term critical raw materials. One essential aspect of critical raw materials are mineralogical and geoscientific questions as minerals host the valuable metals that we need for our technology. Therefore, also a mineralogical museum should deal with education for children, teenagers and adults of mineral raw materials and there need for our everyday life. The important link is to demonstrate them what kind of metals are inside in a smartphone. Looking at a world map and explaining where the minerals in our smartphones come from and what are the mineralogical and geological reasons for the enrichment of certain minerals in specific areas worldwide can be explained during workshops. This also allows the link to political consideration by discussion how small scale mining of minerals is used to finance conflicts such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Additionally, regional raw materials are important to be included in this discussion. The aim is to increase the awareness of the large variety of metals installed in the technical development combined with environmental concerns.