MN Mining

Oh man, we had an awesome MN history lesson today! A while back (can't remember where or when exactly) I found a teacher resource about a simulation of a mine. I stumbled upon it on my flash drive when I planned activities for Minnesota's main industries and decided to make it happen.

Today was actually sunny for once, which was kind of a bummer since we needed the room dark to make a mine. So we covered all the windows with blankets and taped the shades down to make it extra dark. I taped a square (5x4ft) in the reading corner to represent the cage the miners would ride down into the mines. 15 miners would squeeze into each cage (two cages on top of each other) along with their hats, candles, and two lunch pails. The cages went down the shaft between 40-60mph.

Two kids were sick today, so we only had 11 people crammed in the space. Yes, it was still crammed. Imagine how tight it would be for 15 adults! Each kid had a tin can (big ones from the school cook) and a candle (the ones we use for the Christmas services). With their candles lit, they walked through the dark classroom to the even darker coatroom (no windows there!). I had little plastic counters scattered on the floor, some with marks on them, some without. They had to use their candles to see which 'rocks' were valuable and pick those ones up. If I had planned ahead more, I would've used real rocks. Ah well, things to improve for next time.

After a while of mining, they had to blow out their candles and continue mining to mimic the miners who used up their candle supplies. When all the plastic pieces were collected, they wound their way back to the cage to go up to the surface. But unbeknownst to them, I spread a towel on the floor partway back. If they stepped on it, they fell into shaft used for disposing useless rock. Oops. Most of the class didn't make it back to the cage. Since these shafts were up to a hundred feet deep, many men lost their lives in the mines just because they couldn't see them.

Once we turned the lights back on, I had them see how much precious ore they'd collected. I paid them one token per plastic piece with a mark. They definitely had a good time!

(This activity came from www.minnesotahumanities.org)