The relevancy of the issue under study stems from the contradiction between the need for a modern interpretation of the activities of mining and metallurgical schools, which had played a prominent role in the institutionalization of the vocational education environment as well as from moral "obsolescence" of research work results in this field. The goal of the article is the development of environmental indices of mining and metallurgical education of the Urals. The principal concept of research of this problem is the system approach, which allows considering the main peculiarities of the educational environment at mining and metallurgical schools of the Urals comprehensively. This article includes structurally significant characteristics of the educational environment at mining and metallurgical schools of the Urals. The contents of the article may be used for the purpose of modeling, designing and construction of an educational establishment (system) meeting the demands of the new communicational reality within the system of relations between education, industry, and social environment.