WOULD YOU SURVIVE? SHIPWRECK INVENTORY ACTIVITY

THE SITUATION You and some friends set out for an overnight fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico. The fishing goes well, at first- but then the motor quits, and a strong wind drives your boat onto a reef. The boat does not sink, and you are able to get to shore in a life raft.

THE SITUATION CONT. It’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday. The temperature is nearly 100 degrees. You and your friends are stranded on a sandy beach littered with driftwood on a small rocky island. No one lives on the island because there is no dependable source of fresh water. There is some water on the boat, along with food, fishing gear, and a variety of other things. Unfortunately, you are on the beach and the boat is out on the reef. If your calculations are correct, the boat will sink in about 5 hours, when the tide comes in.

COMPLICATIONS Because you had planned to fish and camp out overnight, you won’t be missed until tomorrow afternoon. No one will look for you until then, and no one knows where you are. It might be possible to row to the mainland in the raft, but, given the roughness of the sea and the dry windy weather, it would be very dangerous. So you decide to stay put until someone finds you- but that could be 2-3 days.

DECISION TIME You all agree that you need to decide which items to retrieve from the boat before it sinks. Someone suggests, as a first step, making an inventory of all the food and equipment on the boat. *See Shipwreck Inventory handout. Please rank the items from #1-11, 1 being the most important item to retrieve. Use only Column A.

GROUP DISCUSSION Next, work as a team to rank the items listed on your copy of the Shipwreck Inventory form in order of their importance to your survival. Use Column B. How did you rank items? Why? Share your knowledge so you and all of your friends can survive. Don’t change any of your numbers in Column A. Come to consensus – a general agreement – for Column B.

CAPTAIN’S LIST On the third day, you see a search plane circling overhead. Using your mirror, you are able to signal it. A few hours later a Coast Guard vessel appears and rescues you. After a long drink of cool water, you tell the captain how you managed to survive in such good shape. She looks at your prioritized inventory list and, for your future protection, writes down her priorities and her reasons for the rankings.

COLUMN C Record the Captain’s numbers in Column C. Then, for each item, find out how much your individual rankings and your team’s rankings differ from the captain’s. To do this, subtract the smaller number from the larger one, and write the result in the Difference Column. When you have filled in the results in both Difference Columns, total the numbers in each column.

RESULTS Which number is smaller? How well did you work together as a team? Did you do better as a team? Why? Why not? Did the team discussion help? What does this say about the value of working in teams? Communicating in Teams. Cincinnati, Ohio: South- Western Educational Publishing, 1996.