Cooking Mining Activity

Purpose An introduction to the economics of mining through buying “property”, purchasing the “mining equipment”, paying for the “mining operation” and finally paying for the “reclamation”

Objective Make as much money as possible by mining as many chocolate chips as possible and restoring the earth back to its original condition as much as possible

A few vocabulary terms Ore: a material that can be economically mined. If you remove the material from the ground you can make a profit Chocolate Chips Waste Rock: all of the material that is left over after you remove the metal from the ore. It has no economic value at this time and is dumped on a waste pile away from the ore bearing rock The cookie after the chips are removed Mining: removing the ore from the non-ore rock Reclamation: dealing with the environmental impacts of mining, such as water and air quality, flooding, erosion and damage to habitat, and finally replacing topsoil and revegetating the site

Instructions You and your “business partner” start with $19 of Cookie Mining Money You also have a Cookie Mining Sheet and a sheet of grid paper

Business Partners Decide which one of you is better at numbers and keeping time-this will be your accountant! This person uses the cookie mining sheet. Decide which one of you is better at physical activities-this will be your miner! This person uses the grid paper and the tools.

You need to buy a “mining property” (or cookie) Only one mine property per team Mother’s Chocolate Chip $3.00 Chips Ahoy $5.00 Chips Deluxe $7.00 Be sure to record the type of cookie and the price of your cookie on your Cookie Mining Sheet!

What to do next…… Buy your cookie and place the cookie on the gird paper Using a pencil, trace the outline of the cookie Then count each square that falls inside the circle. (count partial squares as a full square) Record the size of cookie

What about Mining Equipment? Each team must buy their own Mining Equipment. More than one piece of equipment may be purchased. Equipment may not be shared between teams.

Equipment Prices Flat Toothpick $2.00 Round Toothpick $4.00 Paper Clip $6.00 Be sure to record this!!!!

Each minute spent mining costs $1 Each minute spent mining costs $1.00 You have a maximum of 5 minutes to spend mining. If you finish early, only credit the time you spent mining. This gets recorded as well.

It’s almost time to start mining! But first, a few rules! You cannot use your fingers to hold the cookie The only things that can touch the cookie are the mining tools and the paper the cookie is sitting on. If the mining tools break, they are no longer usable and a new tool must be purchased. The team with the most money at the end of the game wins! All players win because you get to eat the remainder of your cookie at the end. OK-when your teacher says go, start mining!

Your Five Minutes Are Up! Each chocolate chip you mined brings $2.00 per chip. Broken chips can be combined to make 1 whole chip. Count up your chips and record!

How much did you make? Figure out your Profit or Loss by calculating the difference between the Value of your Chips and the Total Cost of Mining. There’s a spot to record this!

Reclamation Finally, after the cookie has been “mined” the cookie should be placed back into the circled area on the grid paper. This can only be accomplished using the mining tools-no fingers or hands allowed. Optional-Reclamation costs are $1.00 per square over original count. Record how much your reclamation project cost at the bottom of your sheet

Review You have learned a simplified flow of an operating mine. Also, you have learned something about the difficulty of reclamation.

Mining Facts Your telephone is made from as many as 42 different minerals, including aluminum, beryllium, coal, copper, gold, iron, limestone, silica, silver, talc and wollastonite. Without boron, copper, gold and quartz, your digital alarm clock would not work. A television requires 35 different minerals, and more than 30 minerals are needed to make a computer

More Facts Globally, 50 billion tons of ore are mined every year This is the equivalent of digging a 1 meter deep hole the size of Switzerland, every year

Local Issues: Turning Coal Mine Area Back to Forest, Pasture, read Olympian Article!