Name ____________________________________

Date ______________

Cookie Mining Lab: APES The purpose of this activity is to simulate a mining operation. In order to make the simulation economically valid, many of the costs associated with real mining operations will be considered.
Several of the economic considerations in this simulation follow: ● A land area will be purchased from the bank.
● The land area will be surveyed and quantified.
● Mining equipment will be rented.
● A mining operation will be undertaken, with the cost for each minute of the mining operation included in the total operating costs.
● At the conclusion of mining operations, the reclamation of the land area is required, with a fine assessed for any part of the land area that is not successfully reclaimed.
● The ore that was mined will be sold back to the bank to offset the start­up costs of the mining operation. The definition of “ore” is a naturally occurring material from which minerals of economic value can be extracted at a profit. In this exercise, the chocolate chip is the ore. The worthless rock that is associated with the ore and must be separated from the ore is the “gangue.” (The rest of the cookie is the gangue.) While the goal of this simulation is entirely economic, that is, to make as much money as possible, there are many goals other than economic goals that must be considered in a real mining operation.
Although it is not possible to include all of the social and environmental implications of mining in this simple simulation, they must not be forgotten, and you should be prepared to discuss them in class. Materials
● 1 chocolate chip cookie
● Mining tools (toothpicks/paper clips)
● Graph paper
● Timer/clock Procedure
1. Each miner must obtain a sheet of graph paper and purchase a land area (cookie), on credit, from the bank. a. Chips Ahoy b. Chips Deluxe c. Great Value

$1000 $700 $500

2. Each miner may rent any combination of the following mining equipment, on credit, from the bank (at least two items must be purchased). If you break your equipment, you can rent a replacement.
A damage fee of double the rental price will be applied to any damaged tool. a. Dissection tools $500/ea b. Paper clip $300/ea c. Flat toothpick
$100/ea
3. Following the purchase of the cookie and mining equipment, place the cookie on the graph

Name ____________________________________

Date ______________

paper, trace the outline of the cookie, determine the area of the cookie by counting the number of squares that fall inside the line (count partial squares as full squares), and record the area of the cookie. 4. Place the cookie back inside the circle, and wait for the instruction to commence mining.
5. Once mining begins, the cookie is only to be touched by the mining tools and cannot be flipped over
. The cookie may not be touched with fingers or hands. You may not blow crumbs off the paper at any time. Any part of the cookie that falls off the graph paper is considered to be
“lost,” and should not be retrieved until the simulation is complete.
6.
Attempt to dig out as many chocolate chips as possible. The chocolate chips simulate ore, and will be sold back to the bank to offset the start­up costs of the mining operation. Whole, clean, intact chocolate chips will be purchased by the bank for $500 each, “dirty” chocolate chips will be purchased for $200 each, and partial chocolate chips will be purchased for $100 each
(partial chips must be combined to form the amount of ore in one chip).
7.
The cost of an ongoing mining operation is
$100 per minute.
This cost includes reclamation time. 8. After the cookie has been mined, reclamation must be attempted. Try to place all that remains of the cookie back into the circled area on the graph paper using the mining tools (remember, no fingers or hands allowed). Draw additional circles