| Environment Games |
| Sandra's guide pages |
| Other relevant pages More games Guide law activities Plant activities The web of life Home |
| Water cycle relay game Divide the girls in teams of 5 in a line quite widely spaced. You will need a bucket of water at the start and a Veggie Zip lock bag (those are the large ones with holes in them!) for each team. The girls within the line are also spread far apart. On 'go' the first girl takes and fills the ziploc (she is the Cloud) and twirls while advancing to the next girl. She passes on the bag. The second girl is the Mountain and she runs to the next girl and passes on the bag. The third girl is the Rain and she hops on one foot to the next girl. This fourth girl is the Stream/River and she winds her way - zigzagging to the next girl and passes on the bag. The fifth girl is the Ocean and she takes the bag and Waves all the way back down to the bucket (at the beginning of the line). She fills up the bag and is now the Cloud....(the previous first girl is now the Mountain) get the picture? The girls have to listen to the directions as they will have to remember 'what' they are (or have become) and the action for it. They will get lots of encouragement and cheering from their team! The relay continues until the first girl or cloud is the ocean and waves her way down to the bucket. You all get a bit wet...the Waves have a great time! (Actually EVERYBODY does!) It's an amusing hands on way to understand the water cycle. Have Fun! Nature Quest We used index cards with different foods on it. The girls were lined up single file, and they count off, until they reach 5 and start over, until everyone had a number. The food was sprinkled over the ground. Each number was told what it was allowed to eat. 1 - could only eat bugs 2 - could only eat bugs & leaves 3 - could only eat bugs, leaves & flowers 4 - could only eat bugs, leaves, flowers and small animals 5 - could eat anything. After the food is on the ground, the numbers are called out randomly for the girls to go and find their food. (I think we limited everyone to 3 cards each). Once they had their food cards they were to sit down. We also changed the numbers around so that everyone had the chance of being the "picky" eater or an animal who ate everything. The point of the game was to show one of the ways animals become extinct. Picky eaters (the ones) were limited by what they could eat. (Another point - don't be a picky eater). Deadly links Materials: 30 pieces of 'food'/player (1/3 one colour (sprayed with pesticide), 2/3 another colour (no pesticide)) (Suggested 'food'--pipe cleaners, 1inch paper squares, 6 inch yarn lengths) 1 paper bag per grasshopper Procedure: 1. Tell players this is an activity about 'food chains'. If they are not familiar with the term, spend time establishing a definition. 2. Divide the players into 3 groups: grasshoppers, shrews and hawks. There are 3 shrews for every hawk and 3 grasshoppers for every shrew. Optionally you can label the different groups (different coloured armbands, bandannas, face paint, etc.). A group of 26 would have 2 hawks, 6 shrews and 18 grasshoppers. 3. Hand each 'grasshopper' a small paper bag (their 'stomach'). 4. With players' eyes closed or not watching, you distribute the 'food' in a large open area (playing field, gymnasium, etc.) 5. Give players instructions -grasshoppers hunt for food first. Hawks and shrews watch quietly on sidelines (like good predators!). Grasshoppers have 30 seconds to collect food in their 'stomachs'. Grasshoppers stop collecting food after 30 seconds. 6. Shrews now hunt grasshoppers, while hawks watch. Depending upon the size of the hunting area, shrews hunt for 15-60 seconds. Grasshoppers continue to hunt for food. Each shrew should have time to catch (tag or touch) one or more grasshoppers. A 'caught' grasshopper gives its food bag to the shrew and then sits on the sidelines. 7. Hawks hunt shrews the next time period (15-60 seconds, again depending upon the size of the area). Shrews hunt grasshoppers. Grasshoppers hunt food. 'Caught' shrews and grasshoppers surrender their food bags and sit on the sidelines. At the end of this period, bring all players together with whatever food bags they have to a circle. 8. Ask the 'eaten' players what animal they are and what animal ate them. Next, ask the 'uneaten' players to sort and count the two food colours they've eaten. List each surviving grasshopper and the amount of food collected. Next list each surviving shrew and the amount of food collected. Finally, list the hawks and their food. 9. Tell the players that there is a 'pesticide' in the environment. The pesticide was sprayed in order to prevent crop damage by the grasshoppers. This particular pesticide is one that accumulates in food chains and stays in the environment a long time. Tell the players which colour food was sprayed by pesticide. All surviving grasshoppers (those not eaten by shrews) are now dead if they have eaten any food with pesticide. Any shrew with more than half of its food sprayed with pesticide is considered dead. The hawk with the most food with pesticide does not die; however, it has accumulated so much pesticide in its body that the eggshells produced during the next nesting season will be so thin that the eggs will not hatch successfully. The other hawks are not visibly affected at this time. 10. Ask players about what they experienced. Ask them for their observations about how the food chain seems to work & how toxic substances can enter the food chain, with a variety of results. DEER Category: Large space required! (Outdoors or a gym) Equipment: One sheet of paper and a pen Number of Participants: 24 and up! Age: 7-16 years Source: 30th Guide Company, Calgary - from Guider Jennifer You divide the girls into two equal teams, and line them up facing each other about 25 feet apart. (I'm making an estimate in the distance, if this is too close together you'll know.) One team is the deer, and the other team is the food, water, or shelter. Each round the deer must decide whether they are hungry, thirsty or cold. If the deer are hungry they hold their stomachs, if they are thirsty they cup their hands and if they need shelter they hold their hands together over their heads (tented). The other team of girls decides whether they are food, water or shelter and they make the same symbols. The deer turn back to the other girls, and on the count of three they turn around with their symbol showing and the food, water or shelter is making their symbol too (they decide as well what they'd like to be.) The deer then run across the space and catch their food, water or shelter. Only one deer per person. If there are more deer that need water than there are ponds, then the deer die and stay on the side of the necessities. The deer that get what they need, reproduce and take their new deer with them back to the deer's team. After each round the number of deer is counted, and recorded. Play the game about 10 times, so that the girls can see how the subsequent generations of deer are dependent on the numbers of the previous generation. The Guides that I played this with were quite impressed with how the numbers went way up and then way down! Predator / Prey This is a complicated game but very worthwhile for teaching the girls the basics of ecology and the food chain. In the introduction to the game, you should talk about the relationship between herbivorous (plant eating), omnivorous (everything-eating) and carnivorous (meat-eating) animals. You should also talk about some possible strategies that the three different types of animals use to survive in nature. More will become clear as I describe the basic set-up below. Materials: 30 "Herbivore" life-rings (described below) 10 "Omnivore" life-rings 5 "Carnivore" life-rings, 5 water stations 5 food stations 45 file cards A whistle A watergun brown, green and red face paint (These instructions are for a game with 50 players... if you have a different number of players try to keep the ratios of the different types of animals the same.) The Set-up: The life rings basically show each player how many lives they have left. Herbivores get 10 lives each, omnivores 5 lives, and carnivores 2. What we found worked best for the life rings were to take coloured pieces of card, punch a hole in them, and thread them on to a pipe cleaner. Herbivores got 10 green cards, omnivores got 5 brown cards, and carnivores got 2 red cards. If you wish to use this game a number of times, I recommend waterproofing the cards with fablon or laminating. This also makes them more durable. On each life-ring there should also be attached one white file card. The food and water stations are easily made out of a bright piece of construction paper or card, with the word "food" or "water" written on them. Attached to the station sign is a crayon on a string. Make sure that each station has a different colour crayon attached. When the players visit the food and water stations, they mark their file card with the crayon to prove they found it. The play area should be as large as possible. Scatter the food and water stations throughout the play area, and try to make at least two of them very difficult to find. Use the face paint to mark each player and identify them as either herbivore (green paint), omnivore (brown paint) or carnivore (red paint). The Rules: This is a survival game. Therefore, the only way to "win" is to still be alive at the end of the game. Each type of animal (herbivore, omnivore and carnivore) has different needs, which must be met in order to survive. Send the Herbivores out into the play area first, and give them at least a 10-minute head start on the others. The herbivores must find all the food and water stations in order to survive. Next, send out the omnivores. They must find all the water stations and at least two food stations. They must also catch at least four herbivores in order to survive. Herbivores are caught by being tagged, at which point the omnivore (or carnivore) takes one card from their life-ring. Carnivores are sent out next. They must find all the water stations and must catch at least ten other animals (can be either herbivores or omnivores). At this point you should have 5 players left, unmarked. Send four of them out as Fire, Flood, Famine and Cold. These girls can tag any animal and take one life-card at a time. Their goal is to kill as many animals as possible. The last girl is given the water gun. She is Man. Man can hunt any animal and doesn't have to tag them to catch them: if she can hit them with water from the gun the animal is considered caught and must give Man as many life-cards as Man requests. Man can take all of the life-cards of any animal she catches except for the very last one. When an animal runs out of lives, she is out of the game and should return to the start point. Let the game run for at least an hour, and longer if possible. At the end, call all the girls back with the whistle. You should also have a group discussion about the different strategies used by the players to survive. It is always interesting to find out what strategies the survivors of the game used, and to try and apply them to real life. For example: one time I ran the game we had a Carnivore whose strategy was to hide by one of the water stations, wait for other animals to come by, and ambush them. Lions, crocodiles and other top predators often use this strategy in nature! Neato! Variations: * You can also have one player circulate as Rabies or Disease. This girl should be equipped with a number of yellow cards. When she tags a player, she takes one of their life cards and replaces it with a yellow card. When the infected player tags another animal, she can take two life-cards, and passes on her rabies card. Conversely, if the infected player is tagged by another animal, she can take one of her attacker's life-cards and passes on the rabies card. When the game is over, include in your discussion the effects of diseases on animals. * If you want to make the game really complicated, name all your animals! For example: in the Herbivores you can have Deer, Rabbit, Squirrel, etc., in the Omnivores you can have Racoon, Skunk, Bear, etc., and in Carnivores you can use Wolf, Owl, etc. As part of the survival game the players must find the mate of their species and trade some sort of "reproduction card". In your discussion afterwards, talk about the risks and dangers animals must face in the wild as they try to find a mate and reproduce. |
 |
|
|
|