Bird Seed Mining

We had a MN history lab today... it's called 'Birdseed Mining' and involves students working in groups to mine seeds etc. from a paper plate. After 10 minutes, they count how much of each type of seed they mined and multiply it by how much it's worth. Most of the items aren't worth anything. I have a few colorful beads in each pie plate to represent gold, silver, and copper. The circle noodles represent iron, which is the cheapest value, but makes them the most money because it's more plentiful.

Every time I do this lab I have students try to beat the system by collecting only one kind of item. Usually they think the little rocks are worth lots and lots. Except they're worth zero. I had one kid do that today. His grand mining total: $0. Some only go for the beads, but there are two white beads in each mine that represent the reclamation fees ($100 each) to make the land look nice after all the minerals are mined out. At least this time I didn't have anyone lose money!

We turned it into a bit of a contest. I gave out 10 tokens for the person who earned the most each mine AND I have out 20 tokens per person to the mine that produced the most income. Here are the totals:

• #1- $20,510
• #2- $19,570
• #3- 17,720
• #4- $9,370

The group that won had a lot of their earnings from the 'iron' circle noodles. The group that got the least had the boy who only mined rocks. Lesson learned: listen to Miss H when she says to not just pick out one item!