Ooh! A fellow math geek. I'm in heaven ;-)<br><br>Here's a draft of the scenario I plan to present to the division, FYI:<br><br>Scenario: A 6-year old boy, Jay Walker, has been reported missing by his family from a campsite. He was last seen 6 hours ago playing near the campsite. Temperature is currently a few degrees above freezing. Expected to reach 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) around midnight tonight, temperature will continue to fall throughout the day tomorrow. Snow starting early tomorrow morning, expected to continue for the next three days.<br><br>So far, there have been four reported sightings of a boy matching Jay's description; unfortunately, they are in widely separated areas. However, we will begin by concentrating our search in these areas. (Subsequent exercises, if this one proves popular, may have fewer initial "clues", as they gain more experience.)<br><br>Assignment 1: Calculate the POA (probability of Jay being in each of the four areas), based on a) terrain (good way to work some map-reading in), and b) speed of walking (probably a simple formula, 3 mph uphill, 5 mph on the flat, 7 mph downhill.<br><br>Assignment 2: You have 4 experienced searchers and about 100 untrained volunteers. Develop a search strategy. Be prepared to explain to Jay's parents why you chose that strategy. (Actually, for the first exercise, I think maybe I'll propose two or more different strategies and ask them to decide which ones have the best chance of locating Jay.)<br><br>I figure if I split the cadets up into groups of 4 or 5 and treat each group as though they were co-ordinating the search efforts, they should soon get into the spirit of the thing. Needs a little more work to flesh out the details, but what do you think so far?