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lesson 7 |
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| Teachers' notes |
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| Introduction |
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| This activity
is designed to develop decision making skills. It
concerns the location of an aluminium smelter and
requires the students to consider factors such as
employment, conservation and raw material supply. |
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| Running
the lesson |
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The lesson flow is controlled
by PowerPoint. It contains an embedded flash movie
which is interactive and therefore, the machine
it runs on will need to have the flash plugin installed
(Many machines these days will have this anyway).
Useful tips are included in the notes on the PowerPoint
slides e.g. zooming in on the island map.
If PowerPoint presentation facilities are not available,
the slides can be printed out onto OHT. There are
also accompanying worksheets. |
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| Starter |
Structure
of the aluminium extraction cell on PowerPoint slide.
Handouts are available for annotation.
Aluminium production sequence cards (– correct sequence
is f,d,e,c,a,g,b)
Detailed chemistry suitable for higher ability also
provided. |
| Main
activity |
The PowerPoint is used
to introduce the task.
First, the whole class should consider the
features that a site for an aluminium smelter
may have. The notes on the slide give factors
which you should try to illicit. the class
needs to be split as follows:
(a) 5 Aluminium Smelter Decision Teams (ASDTs)
each with at least one researcher and a manager.
(at least 10 people all told).
Each team has a handout which shows a detailed
map of the area together with space for them
to make notes on each of the factors to be
taken into account when locating an aluminium
smelter.. A member of the team needs to formulate
questions to ask the Experts (see below) to
help them to form a strong argument in favour
of their site. They are at liberty to suggest
changes to the sites (new roads, landscape
changes etc) but must be aware that all these
have cost implications.
(b) Central Government Committee (CGC): comprising
the Minister of aluminium plus 3 advisors
(4 people)
This committee oversees the whole process.
They looking over all the evidence from the
map and from the expert panel. They will probably
come up with their preferred site from this.
There is a handout to help them structure
their decision.
(c) A panel of 8 experts (PoE), each with
a different specialist knowledge on a particular
factor in the siting of an aluminium smelter.
Each expert has a prompt sheet which gives
them general information about the factor
together with specific information about the
various sites. They are told not to give information
freely, but to wait to be asked the specific
questions.
The activity requires a minimum of 22 people.
If the class is smaller, the ‘experts’ could
take more than one specialist area each.
The activity should take about 30-40 minutes
to complete and the students should be allowed
free reign to come up with whatever arguments
they please. There is enough guidance on the
handouts to steer the Central Government Committee
to choose the best choice (which is probably
site A) but its up to the other groups to
change their mind!
| NB Some slides on the
power point require ‘Flash Player’.
Follow the link in the CD Technical
notes to install Flash Player if necessary.
It may not be possible to use the interactive
element of these slides if you are using
a Mac version. |
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Plenary: |
| The plenary is
a connectives task which will help to consolidate
the work. |
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| For background information
on Alcan, a major player in the aluminium industry,
see:
http://www.alcan.com/web/publishing.nsf/Content/Alcan+Facts+2005
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