Prep Time: 10 minutes Lesson Time: 30 minutes Age: Pre-K to 6
Source: Adapted from (National Park Service),
Areas of study: math, science
Background/objectives: By playing an active game, students see how invasive species can outcompete native ones
Materials: hula hoop, checker pieces (or other token-like objects); jump ropes can be used to create additional “safe zones”
Preparation: Look up some local examples of invasive species — the students may have heard about them, and that might help bring the message home.
Procedure:
1. Introduce the subject of invasive species. What are some ways that invasive species can be harmful, both to native species and to ecosystems? Do the students know of any examples? Provide some, and talk about their effects.
2. Set up the game:
Find a large area where the kids can safely run around.
Scatter the hula hoops and the checkers (or tokens) around the area. Lay jump ropes out to create circles.
3. The students are fish, and the checkers represent food. A few kids are birds, and they act as the fishes’ predators. The hula hoops and jump rope loops are “safe zones,” where the fish can hide for a few seconds at a time to avoid the predators. The fish all start at a given spot (the shelter). When someone says “go,” they all rush out and try to grab and bring back as much food as they can. Meanwhile, the birds run around, trying to “eat” (tag) the fish. If a fish gets tagged, they are dead for that round and don’t get any food. The fish cannot be tagged while they are in a safe zone, although they can only stay there for a few seconds. At the end of the round, ask how many fish died and how much food the living fish were able to get.
4. After a few rounds, introduce an invasive species of fish to the game. These new fish are faster than the native fish. To illustrate this, the new “invasive” fish can run around like normal, but the native fish must either crawl or hop around on one leg. At the end of a round, if the students follow the rules, fewer native fish will have survived. The invasive fish usually end up with the bulk of the food.
5. Follow up the game with another discussion. What happened when the invasive species were introduced? What does this tell us about invasive species?
In a competitive game, kids won’t always hold to handicaps. One approach is to give the invasive species handkerchiefs to distinguish them, and to call out kids that aren’t following the rules. Or you could just let them get away with it. Your end-of-round results might not be as illustrative, but the students will certainly understand that the native species don’t have it too good — that’s why they had to cheat.
Related activity: The Spoon Game, described here: . Students gather resources with either knives, forks or spoons to simulate how some invasive species are often better able to obtain food than native species (and thus better able to survive).
How to implement for…
Pre-K-K: xxx
1-2: xxx
3-4:xxx
5-6: xxx
.
