The teacher assembles a collection of chocolate-chip cookies and toothpicks. This is how the elementary school children are supposed to learn about the costs associated with coal mining. Each cookie is a mining property. The students each receive $19 in play money, which they use to buy these properties. They examine the cookies closely to determine which ones to buy. They map their cookies. They buy mining equipment in the form of paperclips and toothpicks. Each minute spent extracting a chocolate chip costs $1. The chips that they do not surreptitiously eat can be sold for $2 apiece. When they are finished, the students must restore their property to its original condition using only their tools, a process that also costs money. Only after this labor can they determine their profits — and the costs of the mining process.