Rocks and Minerals as Resources Lab Activity

Title: Cookie Mining

Introduction:

Like most resources, minerals are distributed unevenly around the world. Minerals are concentrated
in various areas of Earth’s crust due to natural processes. Obtaining these minerals for human use
involves four general steps: locating the minerals, extracting the minerals from Earth in the form of
ore or rock, processing the ore to separate the impurities from the desired mineral, and creating a
useful product from the minerals.

In this lab activity, you will "purchase" a mine, "rent" your mining equipment, and be supervised by
an "official." You will keep track of your expenses and your income to calculate your profit (or loss).

Objectives:

After doing this lab, you should be able to

evaluate the difficulty of mining and reclamation

calculate costs, expenses, income, and profit from a hands-on mining exercise

evaluate the effectiveness of reclamation and its added costs to mining

describe the increasing rarity of some non-renewable mineral resources

Materials:

chocolate chip cookie

toothpicks (flat and round)

paperclips

graph paper

stopwatch, timer or clock with second hand

Procedures:

Note: Read all the instructions for this lab before you begin working! Pre-reading the procedure will
give you a mental picture of what you will be doing and a better understanding of the process.

First, you (the miner) must decide which land area (cookie) you are going to mine and record this
cost in your data table. The available “areas” and costs are listed below:

Store Brand: $4.00

Chips Ahoy™: $5.00

Keebler Chips Deluxe™: $6.00

After purchasing your land (cookie), the miner (that's you) must rent mining equipment and record
this cost in your data table. The mining must be conducted with mining tools. Do not use your hands!
The mining equipment costs are:

Flat Toothpick: $2.00

Round Toothpick: $5.00

Paperclip: $7.00

After purchasing your land (cookie) and equipment, the miner (you) places the cookie on a sheet of
graph paper and traces the outline of the cookie.

The cost of mining and reclaiming your land (labor, etc.) is $2.00/minute. Both mining and
reclamation must be timed! It is up to you how long you want to mine your cookie, but you

must keep track of the time. You must pay for each minute you are working to extract your
“minerals”.

Begin mining your cookie. You may not use your hands or fingers. Work on the graph paper. Only
mining tools may be used. You decide when to stop the mining process. Your goal is to remove the
chocolate chips (the ore) from the cookie (the mine). Multiple your mining time by your labor time
and record the total cost of mining in your data table.

Do not dispose of the excess cookie material (keep everything on the graph paper). A parent or
guardian should act as an “official” and randomly check to make sure that you are not using your
hands or fingers in the mining process.

After the cookie has been mined, you must reclaim the land. To do this you must return the cookie to
as close to the original shape and topography as possible. It must be placed back in the original
circle. This may be done only with the mining tools. No fingers/hands are allowed! Your “official”
should continue to check that you are following the rules. The topography of the mined land should
closely resemble the original topography of the cookie. Be sure to record the time of the reclamation
process in your data table.

Incomplete reclamation efforts are fined by the government. For each graph paper square that is
now different than the original cookie (that means a square that used to have cookie on it and is now
empty, or a square that used to be empty and now has cookie on it), record a penalty of $1 per
square in your data table.

Be sure to record any fines for using your hands during mining or reclamation in your data table.

After your reclamation effort has been completed, the ore will be “sold.” The current price for ore is
Chocolate Chip: $2.00/chip

Note: You may combine broken chips to count as whole chips

Data:

Name (type) of Land Area (cookie type): Keebler Chips Deluxe -

Costs and Revenue Table

Costs Revenue

Land Purchase Price of Land Area $6.00

(cookie cost) = __$6.00
Equipment Flat Toothpick: _________ × $7.00
$2.00 = _______
Round Toothpick: _______×
$5.00 = _______
Paperclip: 2 × $7.00 =
_______
Replacement Costs (for
broken equipment) =
_______ $20.00
Total Equipment Rental Cost
= $20.00

Mining and Reclamation Mining & Reclamation Time: Number of chocolate chips
__8_____ minutes × obtained = 6 × $2.00 =
$2.00/minute = $12.00 Total Revenue
_______16____
Fines EPA assessed "using your
hands" fine ($2.00/incidence) = -$3.00
_________
EPA assessed reclamation
fines ($1.00/un-reclaimed
square) = 3
Total Fines =_$3.00___

To calculate your profits or losses, you must add together your costs and fines and subtract this total
value from your revenue.

(Revenue – Fines – Costs) = $30.00 (a positive number shows a profit; negative shows a loss)

Reflection Questions:
 1. Describe the ways mining in the real world can affect society, ecosystems, and the
environment of a specific region.

It can affect it by limiting the space in a town or city. It also can affect it by once they have got all the
minerals out of the mine, they shut down the site and a bunch of people are out of jobs.

2. Using your answers to the question above, list the criteria you believe should be addressed
by land reclamation. Prioritize your criteria by order of importance. Explain the order you
selected for your criteria.

I think that only certain pieces of land should be able to work on and the rest is left alone. And if the
site closes the workers should have a job waiting for them in another place.

3. Complete reclamation of mined land is the solution you practiced in this cookie mining lab.
What reasoning supports this solution as one that will provide the largest benefits and least
costs to society and the environment?

If a town is low on something they will see if they have it in the hills or on regular land and if they do
they could dig it up and sell it and use it at the same time.

4. Legislation requiring the reclamation of the land makes mining more expensive. How
important is this constraint to achieving complete reclamation of mined land?

Because no one wants to pay because the land does not look the same so they will put it back and if
they do not they will have to pay

5. Were the minerals evenly distributed throughout the cookie mines? In the real world, how
important is this constraint (distribution of mineral ore) to achieving complete reclamation of
mined land?

The minerals were not distributed out evenly in the cookie. In the real world this is important because
people do not just need one mineral, they need all of them to help live in this world.

6. Were you able to restore the land exactly as it was prior to mining? In your experience,
would reclamation of mined land be able to restore and stabilize the natural system of the
region?

Yes, I was kind of able to do so but I had two spots with cookies. I really do not think that
reclamation in the real world would be easy because you will have a lot of left-over dirt and you will
have no room for it so you will take up room and you will have to pay for it.

Refining Design

1. How would you refine your mining techniques in this activity in order to maximize
reclamation? Be sure to include proposed changes in costs, safety, and restoration of the
area.

I do not think I would change anything because it went well, I had time and room for things to go
back to so I would not change anything.

2. Predict how your refined mining techniques could affect the social and environmental stability
of the region.

It would affect the environmental stability it would affect it by having a lot of people having to pay for
land that they used that was not theirs or having the funds to get all the equipment to mine.