Web of Life Game

Purpose:

Through this exercise we hope that the students will better understand the interdependencies that exist between plants, animals, and the physical environment. The visual, interactive nature of this activity is designed to enhance that understanding. We also hope to demonstrate the tremendous repercussions damage to the environment has throughout the web. The main themes we wish to stress are interconnectedness and process.

Materials:

• a ball of twine
• scissors
• paper, marker (or pre-made signs of the various plants, animals and physical factors)

Description:

Explain to the students that they will play a game which demonstrates how plants and animals depend upon each other. Have the students sit in a circle and give each student a sign with the name of a member of an ecological community on it. Depending upon age level or time constraints, list the other members of the ecosystem that that particular member directly depends upon (for food, shelter, etc.) The students must then find the other community members they depend upon within the circle. Once a link is identified, the students are connected with the string.

Once links have been established, the students should look at the pattern which has formed. Discussion should follow concerning the nature of the web, and what that indicates about how much members of an ecosystem depend upon so many other things.

At this point, a change should be introduced into the community. In this case, we are choosing development to impact the community, but other possible options are logging, fires, acid rain, pesticides, etc. Explain the effects of this change, and pull members of the community that might be killed from this change away from the circle, causing them to drop their strings. Then discuss how other species might be affected by the members who have dropped their string, and if those species will be negatively impacted or killed, have them pull away and drop their strings. Students will be able to see the widespread effects pollution brought on by development and destruction brought on by development has on the web. The unraveling should effectively visually display the interdependencies and the complexity of the web. Discussion should follow explaining that pollution and other forms of human impact do not have isolated results. Everything affects other parts of the web, humans included. Human impact might travel through the web and return to negatively affect humans. However, although the effects on humans should be mentioned, the effects on the processes and interdependencies should be emphasized.

For our project, we chose a forest setting. The members we chose to include are sunlight, water, soil, mushrooms, small plants, trees, insects, squirrels, snakes, mice and deer. For the plants and animals, more than one student will have these roles.

Discussion:

A few discussion questions should follow this activity. These include but are not limited to the following:

• what have you eaten today?
• what was your food made of?
• what things do you depend on?
• how do you fit into the web of life?

These questions are designed to break down the human/nature dichotomy and show the students how humans, too, are very involved in all of the processes and interdependencies.