Cookie Mining! — Update April 7th

Hello Everyone,

Homework/Reminders:

  • MACC Letters and Field Trip Notices due April 11th
  • Finish doing your budget for the cookie mining activity, find out how much money you made (profit), and begin to answer questions on worksheet.
  • Prepare for Friday Lit Circle Meeting
  • Did you finish and turn in your water flow chart today? Did you finish your water usage chart assigned Tuesday?

The last two days, we have been talking about resources as we continue our conversation about how we obtain our needs and wants. Each student is reading a packet on one of three resource types to become a specialist on forestry, mining, or fishing. Students are also doing a water chart to record how much water they are using. Today, we had a great discussion about the water cycle and where water goes after you use it. Students were asked to complete a water flow chart to show the journey of water and turn it in to Ms. D. If you didn’t turn it in, then you need to finish by end of day tomorrow.

We also discussed MINING and the finding of mineral resources. What is needed to get the mineral resources we rely heavily upon for the making of products we enjoy? Students brainstormed all the parts of the system of mining, including excavation, surveying, processing, reclamation, and more. We then participated in a COOKIE MINING activity, in which each student was given a pretend $20 to start a mine and had to choose a type of land to purchase (type of cookie), tools (for a fee), and pay for labour, time, and reclamation for the land. The goal was to try and make as much profit as possible by mining and selling your chocolate chips. As a bonus, we ate our mines at the end. Chocolate chip cookies are always delicious. Homework is to finish the budget and begin to answer questions from the activity sheet.

Yesterday, Ms. Larsen, one of the District’s LGBTQ teachers and consultants, came to lead us in a conversation about diversity, gender, and discrimination. Thank you to everyone for participating in this deeper conversation about how the words we say matter and do affect people.

Thank you to Max’s Dad Mr. Lee who came in today to share with us some information about the company he works for, Honeywell, as well as the special voice-activated Lyric thermostat his company makes. He talked about how the production of a single product involves factories and suppliers from all over the world in the global market. Mr. Lee also explained the thinking and many steps that go into creating and selling a product. Everyone in class will be creating and selling their own product, too, so hopefully this conversation helped us to begin thinking about this!

Have a great night! Tomorrow, we will talk a little more about mining and global trade. We also have our next Lit Circle meeting, music, finishing our excel budgets, and free choice!