Chocolate Chip Mining

Introduction: You have applied for a job as a miner at a mining company where your job would be to dig
into the Earth and extract as much of a particular mineral as possible out of the ore. To see if you are
worth hiring, the company have given you a set of tasks to complete. Task 1 is outlined below.

Task 1: In this task you are competing against the other job applicants (the other class
members) to try and excavate (dig) as much chocolate as possible out of a chocolate
chip muffin/cookie.

Aim:

Method:

1. Weigh your cookie/muffin

2. Take your muffin back to your bench
3. With your group, use any means possible to excavate (dig) as much chocolate out of your
muffin/cookie as you can (you can use the utensils from the front of the room or any other
means)
4. Collect your chocolate and bring it to the front of the room to be weighed. (Ensure your
chocolate is pure by removing all of the muffin/cookie from around it.
5. Calculate the percentage of chocolate in your muffin/cookie using the formula below:

Weight of chocolate__ x 100

Weight of muffin/cookie 1

Results:

Weight of Muffin/cookie Weight of Chocolate Percentage of Chocolate in

muffin/cookie

Discussion Questions:

1. What part of the muffin/cookie represents the mineral?

2. What part of the muffin/cookie represents the ore?
3. It takes just 5 grams per tonne (1000 kilograms or 1 000 000 grams) to make an ore containing
gold economically viable to mine. Calculate the percentage of gold in this ore using the equation
below:
5 x 100 =
1000 000 1
4. If your chocolate was gold, would it be economically viable to mine?
CONGRATULATIONS! Task 1 is complete...
Task 2: You succeeded in task 1 and the Company has said that if you complete 1 more task the job
is yours. The Company has been under fire recently about the amount of destruction they are doing
to the environment. They have said whoever can extract the most chocolate from their second
muffin/cookie, while doing the smallest amount of damage to their muffin/cookie will get the job.

Aim:

Method:

1. Weigh muffin/cookie
2. Remove chocolate while doing limited damage to the muffin/cookie
3. Weigh chocolate
4. Calculate percentage of chocolate
5. Get your remaining muffin scored by your teacher
6. AFTER you have had your muffin scored try and put it back together again so it looks like it did
prior to the removal of the chocolate chips

Results:

Weight of Weight of chocolate Percentage of chocolate Score /10 for damage

Muffin/cookie in muffin cookie to cookie

Discussion Questions

1. What is it important to do as little damage to the muffin (environment) as possible?

2. When you tried to put the muffin back together, how difficult was it to get it to look like it did
prior to the removal of the chocolate chips? Why?
3. Whose responsibility is it to return the site of the mine back to its original state?