National Mining Museum Scotland and Midlothian Climate Beacon

That the Parliament notes that the National Mining Museum Scotland was set up to safeguard and protect the mining heritage for current and future generations and to make mining heritage relevant to everyone; understands that its core activities are numerous and include collections management, education, community support and engagement, sector support and advocacy; notes that the museum’s education programme has grown from strength to strength over the last five years, supporting formal and informal learning by developing initiatives that support the curriculum, particularly primary and lower secondary, and through an outreach provision that supports, for example, older people, hard-to-reach children and children with additional support needs; understands that future plans for the museum include climate change and the story of energy, ensuring that it recognises and promotes its role in the climate change debate, and that this will be done in partnership with the British Geological Survey's Midlothian Climate Beacon for COP26, which is a project that was launched in 2021 by creating a journey that follows the carbon cycle, from Scotland’s past legacy of fossil fuels towards a new future of decarbonisation; further understands that the museum continues to explore opportunities to deliver initiatives relating to climate change and the story of energy by developing two interactive zones, the first allowing visitors to explore, in a fun way, elements of engineering that relate to the workings of a mine and energy, how it is created and the origins of fossils, and the second, the Energy Lab portacabin, which has displays and interactives that tell the story of the creation of wave energy, including the original Salter’s Duck, from the museum’s collection, and interactives on how the innovation generated power; understands that it has applied to Museums Galleries Scotland's Museums Capital Resilience Fund for this project, and wishes it well with its application.