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YLT-Team Survival

Your team has been stranded on an island off the coast of Newfoundland. There is little hope of rescue. When your plane crashed, you found several items that might be helpful, but the plane is partially submerged, and the items are quickly washing out to sea. Your team will have to decide which items you want to save to aid in your survival.

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Plan

  • Will you do this activity as one big group, or in smaller teams? 
  • How will you decide what your priorities are? 
  • How will you ensure that everyone gets a chance to share their ideas? 
  • Why does it matter which items you choose? 

Do

  • Your group may only choose six items in total. Using the list below, choose which items you will take. Your team must agree on the list of six items before it is finalized. Alternatively, rather than picking only six items, you can rank all of the items in order of importance. 
  • You can see the following items starting to float away from the plane. Which six will your team grab? 
  • Rope (50m) 
  • Water container (empty) 
  • Small mirror 
  • Floating cushion 
  • Emergency rations 
  • Fishing rod 
  • Mosquito net 
  • Bottle of rubbing alcohol 
  • Sea chart 
  • Radio 
  • Chocolate bars 
  • Jerry can of gasoline 
  • Plastic sheet 
  • Shark repellant 
  • Some items may have more “value” than others, but there is no one answer. At the end of the review section is one “correct” answer, from the US Coast Guard, but you are welcome to interpret the items however you wish! 
  • The most important part of this activity is working together to solve a problem – the next section has one correct answer, but feel free to get creative! 

Review

  • What was the most challenging part of this activity?  
  • Did you learn anything that surprised you? 
  • How did you work as a team during this activity? 
  • If you were to do this activity again, what would you do differently? 

 

“Correct” answers (ordered from most important to least important) 

  • Shaving mirror (this can be used to start a fire or signal for help) 
  • Jerry can of gasoline (again, could be used to start a fire, but gas also floats on water and could potentially help signal) 
  • Water container 
  • Emergency rations 
  • Plastic sheet (used to collect rainwater, used for shelter, used to create a solar still, etc.) 
  • Chocolate bars (a good food supply, but maybe not as nutritious as the emergency rations) 
  • Fishing rod (could be helpful, but you cannot guarantee that you will catch anything. Could also be used as a pole to make a shelter) 
  • Rope  
  • Floating cushion (could be used to float in the water) 
  • Shark repellant  
  • Bottle of rubbing alcohol 
  • Radio (you may be out of signal range anyway) 
  • Sea chart (useless without navigational instruments) 
  • Mosquito net (the risk of mosquitoes isn’t too high in the North Atlantic).
  • However, if you can come up with more creative ways to use the equipment (e.g. using the mosquito net to fish), then the order can definitely change! There is no one way to do this activity, other than thinking outside the box! 

Keep it Simple

Work in smaller teams, rather than one big group. This will make it easier for everyone to share their ideas. Once you’re done, bring the whole group back together and share how you ordered the items. 

Take it Further

  • Add other items – what is missing from the list that you might want to add? For an added challenge, you can assign point values to each item, rather than just an order and see which team can select items worth the most points. 
  • You can also add more factors – change the location of the island or add more details about what resources the island has.