Middle School Science Lessons

This is was of my favorite activities from our minerals and mining unit. It takes about 1 whole class period to explain the activity, collect data, eat the cookie (& crumbs), and clean up. We discuss our results the next class and determine who made the most profit.

Objectives: students will simulated running a mine and calculate the costs associated with it as well as the impact on the environment

Materials:

• Lesson plan resources:
  • Population Education
    • you will need page 6 for the Mining Area Grid
  • PBS Cookie Mining
  • American Geosciences Institute
  • Griffin Museum of Science and Industry
• Google Sheets Spreadsheet – Public Link – students can enter their expenses and determine their profits
• Cookie Mining Spreadsheet – Worksheet to keep track of expenses
• Equipment:
  • Box of rounded toothpicks
  • Box of flat toothpicks
  • Box of small paper clips
• Cookies: be mindful of food allergies
  • chocolate candy pieces
  • regular chocolate chips
  • chunky chocolate
• “Working in a Coal Mine” by Devo – playing the song 2 times = about 5 minute

When determining the value of the chocolate ore, I have the students place their chocolate pieces close together in one area of the map. When they are done, I go around and circle the area of chocolate and give their chocolate a rating. They count the number of boxes their chocolate covers and enter it into their spreadsheet.

If there are crumbs attached to the chocolate, I call that ‘slag’ and it lowers the value of the chocolate ore. This leads to a great discussion afterwards when we compare the profits and talk about land use. Is it better to get out as much chocolate as you can, even if you get a lot of slag, or is it better to remove just the chocolate even though you will have less in the end? How is this similar to coal mining? Diamond mining?

updated 4/12/25