November 18, 2020

Welcome back to the High School Corner!

This week we are giving you a peek into our AP Environmental Science class! An integral part of this class is lab work, which helps us understand the real world applications of what we are learning in class. We are currently studying mining, and to demonstrate the various factors that are a part of mining, we did our own mining project…with cookies! 

Each student chose a cookie and “mining tools” (toothpicks and paper clips) of varying costs, and then attempted to “mine” as many chocolate chips as possible out of their cookie. Throughout this lab, we had to take into consideration our land (cookie) cost, tool rental fees, mining cost per minute, processing fees (to count our chocolate chips), land reclamation fees, labor costs, the income from the mined chocolate chips, and total profits. By learning about all of the costs associated with mining, we were forced to consider the different issues that come into play during real-life mining. 

Thank you for reading!