Scenario An airplane flying to the US crashlanded in the Pacific Ocean Now the airplane is floating on top of the water There are nine survivors, most of whom have some small injuries The crash site is about one and a half days of rowing from the nearest land The survivors have a life raft with room for four persons Your group must make a decision about who those four persons will be The brief bios of the nine survivors Tanja McFly (25) Tanja is a divorcee with a 5-year-old son She is a waitress in a night club Working night shifts, she is forced to leave much of the parenting to her mother, who lives in the same trailer with them She wanted to become a doctor but his son’s unplanned arrival and his divorce disrupted her plans She suffered some internal injuries and complains about severe stomach ache Andy Kiss (34) Andy is your pilot and it was only due to her expertise and composure in the emergency that the jet could land smoothly and did not break apart She is single and has no children She started her career in the US Navy She received training in survival techniques while there She is in a bad physical condition now, having suffered serious injuries to her left arm, which she can’t feel or move Bekele Hagos (21) Bekele is a sophomore (=2nd year student) at SOTE Medical University in Budapest He wants to move back to his native Ethiopia once he’s graduated from medical university He speaks perfect English thanks to his English language education He has very poor eye sight, but his glasses got broken in the crash He has no children He was flying to the US to meet his American girlfriend in San Diego Tulugaq Irniq (15) Tulugaq belongs to a tiny Inuit tribe that speaks a completely different language than the rest of the Inuits There are only about 30 people left that speak this language With the tribal population sinking year by year there is a fear that this language will soon go extinct Tulugaq, whose name means ‘raven,’ was on her way to settle in California after marrying a linguist who was doing field work in her tribe She doesn’t speak any English Frank Smith (59) Frank became a hippy in the late sixties, because he loved the new ideals of anti-consumerism and free love He still adheres to his principles and lives in a hippy community to this day All he owns is a tiny mobile home, an old chopper and a small piece of land He and his wife make a living off of selling organic vegetables and doing pottery He has one grown-up child, who he hasn’t spoken to for years He was flying to San Diego to meet him again and to try and mend their broken relationship Meg Polanski (10) Raised by her mother, Meg is an only child who is very hard to control She has a full-time babysitter, who she hates She is bullying her classmates in school, but they are too scared to report her to the teachers She demands that her mother buys her anything that she pleases She likes to watch TV above all else Agent Malcolm (32) Agent Malcolm works for the CIA’s antiterrorism arm His job description includes listening to wiretapped private phone calls in an effort to trace terrorist activities A Harvard graduate in psychology, he was assigned to Iraq to question US terror suspects in a secret prison where they are kept on a special Presidential order without the knowledge of the public Agent Malcolm has two little children Marianne Polanski (38) She is Meg Polanski’s mother She separated from her boyfriend, the father of her child, three years ago She has had several boyfriends since then She is the head of the marketing department of a multinational company She’s a chain smoker and a workaholic who focuses more on her job than on her daughter She often gets home late, letting the babysitter take care of Meg in the mornings and after school Neither she or the babysitter can discipline Meg Thomas Waldorf-Astoria (59) Born into the rich Waldorf-Astoria family, he owns fifteen large factories on several continents, employing over 55 thousand people Amidst the ongoing crisis he intends to modernize his company rather than massive lay-offs If he dies, his company will be taken over by the oldest of his children, who wants to improve profitability by ruthlessly laying off 30 thousand employees, while cutting wages and benefits for the remaining ones TEACHER’S NOTES Aim: This exercise may enable student groups to discover how they work together; their strengths and how they need to improve Time required: Thirty minutes as an icebreaker, one to one and a half hours with debriefing, depending on the number of groups Resources: A room where small groups can form; flip chart or overhead projector plus pens Procedure: Give the students the handout of the scenario and the brief bio of the nine survivors and make clear the 30 minute time limit imposed Explain that each group will have five minutes in which to report back and justify their decision Reporting back is not essential but gives the students the opportunity to explain their decisions If there is a large number of groups, an alternative would be to record their choices on paper for display Carry out a debriefing of how the group had functioned The questions you ask will depend upon the learning you want the students to achieve from the exercise but should encourage reflection on their experience Examples - How did they reach their decision? What roles did group members adopt? Did they listen to each other? What have they learned about the functions of a group? What would they next time?