Student Activities

Cookie Mining
In this delicious hands-on activity, prepare to learn about mining, reclamation, and profitability while mining chocolate chips from a cookie. First, you'll choose the quality of the land and tools for your mine. Next, you'll get to work mining chocolate chips. When the timer buzzes, you'll have to compare your income and expenses. Did your mine make a profit?

Electrical Transmission
Help light up Ridgetown! A new North Dakota town needs electricity and it's your job to find a path for electrical transmission lines. While the shortest path between substations is always a straight line, you'll have to follow real-world regulations and rules before constructing your towers. Can you find the shortest, cheapest route?

Playdough Core Sampling
Go back in time - way, way, way back! In this activity, you will learn how sedimentary layers of rock were deposited millions of years ago, leading to coal formation. After creating a model of sedimentary rock layers with playdough, you will fast forward to the present. In the present day, you'll work as a core sampler to learn just where that coal from the past is hidden underground.