Back when I was in high school, I remember these little problem-solving exercises we had to do in speech class. They were supposed to show how hard it is for groups of people to compromise on things (often, the speech teacher would plant student in the groups who would choose an option that would be unpopular and refuse to let others change their minds). I remember two scenarios. In the first, the group was supposed to be stuck on a strange planet for two weeks after the spaceship broke down, and we were supposed to rank the list of gear we had from most essential to least essential for survival. The gear included things like a gun, matches, a tarp, oxygen tanks, and the like. In the second scenario, the earth is in imminent danger of being destroyed by a meteor shower. There is a colony in space set up for permanent habitation, but there’s only time to send up one spaceship. The group is given a list of people. All we know abou them are their ages, occupations, and other important characteristics (one was a manic-depressive, but she was also pregnant, and she and her lawyer husband would not be separated, so they either both had to go or both stayed), and we have to choose a limited number of them to go up and start a whole new world.
I’m curious to find these exercises, because I think they would make fun MPSIMS fare, but I have NO idea what to put in a search engine to look for them. Can anyone help?
Hey, I remember those sort of tests. There was an excellent one about crashing an plane in the middle of the desert at Midday, where you had to rank 15 items in order of importance.
Unfortunately, I have no idea on where to start looking for them. I can’t even lay my hands on a copy of the plane-in-the-desert scenario anymore.
Drain, we use those scenarios at work, in our supervisor development training. I don’t know where you can locate them on the net, but if you don’t find them within the next couple of days let me know and I’ll fax you a copy of them. There are several different versions, one being broken down in the middle of the desert and trying to decide what is the more important on the tool list.
Libby, you might start with searches in Jr. High and High School curriculum, most likely under English, Debate or if any other particular subject strikes you as most likely. Unfortunately, I don’t know specific names of sites for such things.
My wife is a teacher, and she said it sounds like something you might find under “lesson plans”. She says there are sites for lesson plans. You might try there, also.
Ther must be some part of the car that is a magnet so you could use that to magnetise a needle or some such which you could then rub on the fat in the lipstick.
This would then float on water which is held in the wash/wipe bottle and would make an acceptable compass.
Use the map and you are away.
As strange as it may seem, the car test above roughly parallels the airplane crash test I mentioned earlier.
The most important items are: a mirror, a blanket, and some food and water (didn’t see water in the car scenario).
The rationale being that if the temp was 40C in the shade, it would be too hot to move around without getting hyperthermia. Hence the blanket would provide some shade from the sun. The food and water are obvious in value. The mirror’s value lies in using it as a signalling device. By flashing reflected sunlight about, the mirror will generate a flash of light that can be seen up to 40 kilometers away.
The best way to survive either scenario is to stay near your vehicle, as it provides both shelter and visibility to air searches. Experience in Australian deserts proves this. Where people have stayed with their cars, they where usually found alive. But when they tried travel on foot, they usually died alone and lost, in most cases never to be seen again.