To help us learn the components of habitat, students played a game.  Here is how we played the game.

“The game is played by four people on one side of the basketball court.  They are the deer.  All of the other people on the other side are:  food, water, shelter and space.  These people have special cards representing the deer’s needs.  The four deer have to race across and get all of their things, one trip at a time, and get back to other side with all of their things.  If they don’t, the deer “dies” and becomes one of the deer’s needs.”  Lilly

“Some people are deer.  Other people are habitat.  Deer people have to get four tags of the habitat.  They need all of the colors to survive.  There are only a certain amount of resources.  Green = food, Yellow = space, Blue = water, Red = shelter.”  Adrien

“To play this game, you have four “deer” that try to collect an animal’s four needs:  food, water, space and shelter.  Anyone who isn’t a deer is a habitat part.  The deer try to collect the four needs before they run out.  Anyone who doesn’t collect them becomes part of the habitat.  At the start of every new round, more deer are chosen by the deer who have survived, making it harder to survive.”  Maggie

Here is what happened during our rounds!

“I really liked this game because of how much it relates to actual animals, and their habitat.  If they die, there is one less in the population.  If they add more deer, you reproduced with population growth.”  Lilly

“When deer lived, more habitat people became deer.  When we had lots of deer they didn’t have enough resources.  Four deer always seemed to survive.”  Adrien

“When we played, the population of the deer kept growing.  Soon, there was more deer than there was habitat.  Since every one was racing to get their needs, soon the habitat ran out of food, water, shelter and space.  All of the deer died and there was a population crash.”  Maggie