Digging In, an award-winning interpretive exhibition project, offers informal hands-on education to a broad audience and through a variety of interpretive media.

Digging In tells a story that effects all our lives, with the goal of challenging long-held perceptions about our role in copper's story. All of us are dependent on products that use copper. If you want to know what life would be like without copper, think about the last time your electric power went out!

Digging In is a story about people and connections – connections on a community, regional and national scale. The electrification of America that commenced in the early 1880s continues to make it possible for distant power plants to energize our computers, televisions, and countless other tools and technologies. Digging In interweaves the complex stories of how society's demand for copper impacted the history of copper mining in the West, the story of how a western mining community responded to that demand, and how its response has shaped our national history. Digging In brings broad appeal to a varied audience, placed in the setting of its own story.

Located on the museum's second floor, Digging In is a state-of-the-art mining exhibit beautifully crafted by Smithsonian designers. You'll enter through a change house before winding through an underground mine rich with minerals, a crystal cave, and the history of hard-rock miners who blasted, drilled and mucked more than 2,000 miles of tunnels through the surrounding mountains.

From there you segue into today's world of open-pit mining, where new technologies address challenges posed by a high-demand marketplace and low-grade ore. Environmentla issues and your role in the copper story are also highlighted in this exhibit.