Name: ______________________ Date: __________ Period: ______ Table number: ______
The situation
Read this with me. It is made up, but the cold is real.
You and the three other people at your table were passengers on a small plane flying over the north woods in late October. The engine failed. The pilot made a hard landing on the shore of a big lake. Everyone walked away with scrapes and bruises, nothing worse. The plane is wrecked and will not fly again, but it is in one piece and the door still closes.
Before the landing, the pilot radioed a distress call and gave the plane's position. The radio is dead now, but searchers know the general area, about twenty miles across. The nearest town is forty miles away through thick forest with no road. It is about 35 degrees F in the daytime and drops below freezing at night. The lake water is clean-looking but not safe to drink without boiling. It is 2 in the afternoon, and dark comes at 6.
Ten things survived the crash. Your job: rank them from 1 (most important for surviving until searchers find you) to 10 (least important).
The ten items
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| A | A large orange plastic tarp, 12 feet by 12 feet |
| B | A box of waterproof matches |
| C | A metal cooking pot with a lid |
| D | A first aid kit |
| E | Three wool blankets |
| F | A loud whistle |
| G | A flashlight with fresh batteries |
| H | A bag of 24 granola bars |
| I | A folding knife |
| J | A road map of the state |
Image for the item cards (one per card, for the ELL word bank): A, an orange square with a corner folded; B, a small box with a match; C, a pot with a lid; D, a white box with a red cross; E, a folded blanket; F, a whistle on a cord; G, a flashlight with a beam; H, a granola bar in a wrapper; I, a folding knife, closed; J, a folded map.
Part 1: Rank alone (silence)
Rank all ten. Write the letter next to each number. One word of reason for your number 1.
| Rank | Alone (letter) | Team (letter) | Expert (letter) | Alone difference | Team difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||||
| 2 | |||||
| 3 | |||||
| 4 | |||||
| 5 | |||||
| 6 | |||||
| 7 | |||||
| 8 | |||||
| 9 | |||||
| 10 |
My number 1 and why (one word): ______ because ______________
Part 2: Rank as a team (talk)
Rule: one team ranking, and every person has to be able to say why for the top three. No voting on the whole list. Talk through each item. Move the cards on the table. Write the team ranking in the Team column.
Sentence starter: "I think ___ is number ___ because ___."
Part 3: Score
Directions: Copy the expert ranking into the Expert column as I reveal it. Then, for each item, find the difference between where you put it and where the expert put it. (If you put the matches at 4 and the expert put them at 1, the difference is 3. Ignore the minus sign.) Do this for the Alone column and the Team column. Add up each column.
An easier way: go item by item. Find item A in your Alone column and in the Expert column. Subtract the two rank numbers. Write the difference next to item A's row in the Expert column. Do all ten. Add.
My alone total: ______ My team total: ______ The best alone total at my table: ______
Did the team beat my alone score? Yes / No Did the team beat the best person at the table? Yes / No
Part 4: The five steps
Directions: Write each step next to the moment in the simulation that matched it. Circle the step your team did worst.
| Step | What we did in the simulation that matched it |
|---|---|
| 1. Name the choice | |
| 2. List options | |
| 3. Weigh each against what matters | |
| 4. Decide | |
| 5. Look back |
The one item I would still rank differently from the expert, and my reason:
Grade 8 stretch: (a) A one-sentence rule for what a group should do when one member is sure and the rest are not: ________________________________. (b) Same ten items, new situation: a hot desert road in July, the town 5 miles away, no distress call went out. Which two items change place the most, and why? ________________________________________________
Exit card
- The five steps in order (handout turned over): ______________, ______________, ______________, ______________, ______________
- My alone score: ______ My team score: ______
- The one item I would still rank differently and why: ________________________________
- * *
Teacher key
The expert ranking and the reasons
This ranking is written for this course. It follows three ideas: cold kills first (the rule of threes: about three hours without shelter in the cold, three days without water, three weeks without food); searchers know where you are, so being seen and heard matters more than moving; and walking forty miles through forest in freezing weather is the choice that gets people killed. Reveal one item at a time with its reason. A team that ranks two neighboring items the other way around with a real reason is not wrong; the reasons are the lesson.
| Expert rank | Item | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | B, waterproof matches | Fire is warmth at night, a smoke signal by day, and the way to boil lake water. Without fire, the first night below freezing is the biggest danger you face. |
| 2 | E, three wool blankets | Direct warmth for four people at night. Wool keeps you warm even when it is damp. Shelter and warmth come before everything except fire. |
| 3 | A, orange tarp | Shelter from wind and rain, stretched from the plane. And it is bright orange: spread on the shore, it is the one thing on this list a search plane can see from the air. |
| 4 | C, metal pot with a lid | The lake is your water, and you have to boil it to drink it safely. The pot is the only way. Water matters more than food by a wide margin. |
| 5 | F, whistle | Three blasts is a call for help. A whistle carries much farther than a voice, and it costs no energy, so you can signal every few minutes for days. Searchers on the ground find whistles. |
| 6 | G, flashlight | Signal to searchers at night (three flashes) and move safely around camp after dark. Batteries run out, so it is not first. |
| 7 | D, first aid kit | Nobody is badly hurt. The kit keeps small cuts and blisters from becoming big problems, which matters over days, but it does not keep you warm or hydrated tonight. |
| 8 | I, folding knife | Useful for cutting cord, tarp, and kindling. Helpful, not lifesaving by itself. |
| 9 | H, 24 granola bars | Six bars each. Food is the last thing you run out of. Ration them; they keep you going, but hunger will not hurt you in the first three days and cold will. |
| 10 | J, road map | The town is forty miles away through forest, and searchers already know where you are. The map tempts you to walk out, which is the choice most likely to get someone killed. Stay with the plane. |
Scoring
Difference score: for each item, the absolute difference between the student's rank and the expert rank; add all ten. The lowest possible total is 0. In most rooms, individual totals run 20 to 40, team totals run 12 to 26, and the team beats the average individual at most tables and the best individual at about half of them. Post the table numbers on the board; the pattern is the lesson.
Worked example for one item: a student ranks the matches (B) at 4. The expert rank is 1. The difference is 3. Write 3 in the Alone difference column on the row where the student wrote B.
The five steps, matched
Name the choice: "What do we need to survive until rescue?" List options: the ten cards. Weigh each against what matters: cold first, then water, then being seen, then food; searchers are coming. Decide: the team ranking. Look back: the score and the reasons, and the item we would still argue.
Grade 8 stretch, the desert version
The two that move most: the tarp (A) moves up to 1 or 2 for shade, and the map (J) moves up into the middle (town is 5 miles, no distress call, so walking out at night with the flashlight becomes a real option). The wool blankets (E) drop toward the bottom. Any answer that names those moves with the reason (heat and no searchers) earns full credit.
Grade 6 version
Rank six items: B, E, A, C, H, J. Expert order for the six: B, E, A, C, H, J (1 to 6). The team agrees on the top three only.
Word bank [check with a native speaker]
rank (sıralamak / classificar / clasificar); item (eşya / item / objeto); shelter (barınak / abrigo / refugio); warm (sıcak / quente / caliente); signal (işaret / sinal / señal); searchers (arama ekibi / equipe de busca / equipo de búsqueda); expert (uzman / especialista / experto).