Chocolate Chip Mining A practical, problem-solving activity linked to analysis of data about copper mining. |
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Classroom materials, motivating pupils for math and science |
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![]() ![]() Context The context in the first part of the task is extracting chocolate from chocolate chip cookies. The second part relates the experiment to mining or in general to metal extraction, with reference to associated environmental problems. Role Students are addressed as mining engineers who investigate methods for getting useful minerals from rocks. In this analogy the mineral is chocolate and the rock is a cookie. Activity Students design and carry out an experiment of extracting chocolate from cookies. This can be seen as an analogy of extracting copper ore from rock. Product The product of the task is a report for the directors of the mining company, in which the results of students' investigation and experiment are presented. |
Abstract Mineral resources are not evenly distributed in the Earth's crust. The difficulty of reclaiming mined areas and the environmental impact of mining are of economic importance. In mining the relative volume of waste versus ore is an issue. In the first part of this open-ended practical activity students investigate ways to extract the 'valuable' chocolate from a chocolate chip cookie. They carry out the experiment and compare the amount and volume of the chocolate to that of the waste. In part 2 this experience is linked to the analysis of data about copper mining, to stress the importance of the issues addressed in part 1 for copper mining. Documents
Copyright/Creative Commons Mascil partner: GB ![]() Materials are published under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Discipline - Mathematics - Biology - Physics - Chemistry ✓ - Engineering Target group - Primary Education - Lower Secondary Education ✓ - Upper Secondary Education Age range 11-15 Duration 100 min. |