This type of exercise is doubtless a familiar feature of team-building training. It is very effective as an assessment of skills of group work, persuasion, problem solving and decision making, that pupils of all levels of ability find enjoyable and get a great deal out of. Differentiation can be achieved through adding extension problems such as a group member who has a broken leg, or a river that needs to be crossed and so on. This task has also been used as the stimulus for a variety of writing tasks from the diary to the newspaper report. Put pupils into groups of four and present them with the background story of the task, such as that their group has crash landed in the rainforest. Their small plane is wrecked and cannot be repaired. They do not know hao long they will be lost, nor the location of the neareast town or village. Each group selects from a list provided by you a number of items they wish to take to help them on their journey. They can only take items up to a certain weight limit and must, therefore, think carefully about their decisions. For example: o o o o o o o o o o
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3 x blankets 4 weight units each 1 x flare gun 3 weight units 1 x box of waterproof matches1 weight uniaaat 1 x 6ft square tarpaulin 3 weight units 5 x 51tr water containers (full) 5 weight units each 3 x machetes 3 weight units each 1 x 12ft rope 4 weight units 100 x painkilling tablets 1 weight unit 1 x gas camp stove (full) 2 weight units 1 x book 'Edible Plants5 2 weight units
The list needs to be longer than this so as to give pupils real choice, but the above is a start. Limit their choices to around 28 or so weight units. Monitor each group as they make decisions and then ask each group to present their choices to the class, giving reasons for their decisions. This can be continued by then giving the groups a problem to solve using just those items they have elected to take with them.
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