Surviving the Deserted Island: Learning from the Neanderthals

Imagine you are a captain for a high-class cruise ship. Your patrons, crew members, and your ship becomes beached on a rocky deserted island. You do not know your exact location but you have noticed high temperatures during the day and cool temperatures during the evening.  You and the thirty ship member crew must adapt and create a small civilization to survive.  After exploring the island you have found it to be full of small animals such as wild boars, birds, rodents, and bright colored snakes and insects along with plenty of vegetation including plants and trees.  You become more conscience of the foods the small animals are eating. Through exploring the island you have yet to find fresh water and know that the surrounding ocean is salt water. You need to find a way to keep your crew hydrated and alive! Using the thick vegetation on the island you must also build shelters and tools to help keep everyone safe. After a couple days your crew tends to become restless, how will your crew bring their leadership roles from the ship and transition them to maintain stability and order on the deserted island.

Keeping in mind these conditions, how will you and your crew members adapt to the environment and strive.  What will will you invent to live?  What will the shelters look like?  What form of authority or government will work best?  From what you know from present innovations and past inventions how will you survive?

Using these websites to learn about innovations from the Neanderthal, how will you utilize your environment and resources? In addition, find two more reliable websites to assist you in learning about early inventions and life.

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=1406&HistoryID=ab23&gtrack=pthc

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/stone-tools

http://survivenature.com/island.php

For more ideas visit:

https://mises.org/system/tdf/The_Nature_of_Man_and_His_Government.pdf?file=1&type=document

Students will create a shadow-box to show their working island society with displaying aspects of their civilization including: the government, clothing, tools, diet, and shelters.

Students will use a chart worksheet to organize their information from the resources.