It's exciting and new, come aboard, we're expecting you.

It's the Love Boat.

You find yourself on the senior trip on a cruise ship in the Bahamas. You have "borrowed" the trip money from your parents and they do not know where you are. The ship's radio is out, and the whole crew of the Love Boat seems to have stolen the ship. It is unlikely that anyone in the world knows where you are. One day, the ship sails into an area of small islands and very strong, dangerous currents. Each small group takes a little boat out to a different island. Some of you try to swim about in the ocean around your island, but the tides and rip currents are too dangerous for you to get far from the shore. Suddenly, a large tropical storm comes up and you notice that the weather has made it impossible to return the Love Boat. You watch in terror as the Love Boat is washed up on the rocks. Your own small boats are destroyed by the pounding surf. As you watch the Love Boat sink, the last thing you hear is Gene Hackman screaming "How many more lives?!" over the ship's intercom.

So, you are stuck on a small island with the following resources:

10 bottles of wine (each bottle is enough liquid for a day per person, drinking a half bottle a day gets you drunk and unable to work tomorrow, open bottle can't be saved)

10 Chocolate bars (not a meal, open bar can't be saved)

10 bottles of Evian (each bottle is enough liquid for a day per person)

5 beach towels (can be blankets, or a days worth of fire if all five are burned)

3 days worth of food for each person

1 pistol with 12 bullets

an ax

The islands you are on have certain resources.

10 Monkeys, 40 Guava Fruit Trees, 2 Baobab trees, Hemp plants, a dirty freshwater spring

Monkeys are very pretty, but they are also quite tasty if killed and cooked. Eating uncooked monkey will kill you. Each monkey will feed four humans for a day. They are hard to kill though, requiring 12 person-hours of hunting with the pistol to get one. Pistol hunting takes 3 bullets per monkey. Monkey trapping requires four rope traps, and 48 person-hours to get one. One new monkey is born every month if there are at least seven monkeys. Monkey meat can be dried to eat later.

Guava fruit trees are all over the place, and in three person-hours enough fruit can be gathered to feed one person for a day. Guava fruit cannot be stored for later. Cutting down a Guava tree for enough firewood for a day takes one person-hour and the ax.

The leaves of Guava trees can be used to build shelter, but you need rope to do it. Building a shelter also means that you have to cut down a Guava tree. Building a shelter for one requires 12 person-hours of work, 30 feet of rope, and one tree. Building four person shelter requires 36 person-hours of work, 60 feet of rope, and two trees. Building shelter requires the ax.

Baobab trees are funky looking. Cutting a Baobab tree would take 108 person-hours. The wood from that massive project would burn for 180 days. Wood cutting requires the ax.

Hemp plants are the source of rope. The work is ugly however. One must strip the leaves, chew the evil tasting fibers, and then braid the slobbery mush together. 30 feet of rope requires 6 person-hours.

Making a monkey trap requires 3 person-hours and 30 feet of rope.

The spring is filled with monkey droppings. It takes 24 person-hours to clean it. 2 days later it will be clean enough to drink.

Your assignment: Decide as a group how to survive. Plan on running at least 7 days and no more than 14 days.

Someone needs to be responsible for keeping a log of how your group spends each day. This log must include: describing who does what (including possible lack of sleep), who drinks wine (and possible drunkenness), who uses the gun, and who uses the ax. You should also record the day that the spring was cleaned. Any extra stuff your group does should be recorded. Your group's grade will depend more on this document than any other.

Another person should record how much each person in the group works, drinks, and eats in a given day. Use the preprepared chart.

A third person should keep track of supplies. Use the supply chart to record how many supplies are gained or lost as time goes by.

Person four should be the director and reader. This person should make sure that all of the charts match each other. This person should also keep track of projects in progress. So, for example, if you split up cutting down a Baobab tree over a few days, person four should keep track of labor still required on a project.

Grading: This is a group grade. I am going to walk around as the experiment goes on and check how your group is doing. If you are not making quick progress, I will not give you points. You must complete at least 10 days of turns. I will check off each day as you finish to make sure that you are doing it correctly. When the experiment is finished, you will turn in your packet of papers and that will also be graded. Finally, you will have to write an analysis of how your group functioned, so pay attention to the events. Details will be important.