Sustainability Camp Curriculum

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE

Time:    45 min (partial block; ideally paired with Dead Animals in Your Car?)
Place:   Tofino Botanical Gardens, activity, outdoors or indoors

Overview

This block is focused on distinguishing between, and understanding the importance and appropriate use of renewable and non-renewable resources – all natural elements that are shared by the commons.

Students will explore the meaning of “carrying capacity” – referring to the number of a given species that an area’s resources will support without impairing that area’s ability to continue supporting that population. Sustaining our natural resource base requires observation and the cooperative use of resources held in common. In this simulation activity, students desiring to draw renewable resources from a common pool devise, by trial-and-error, short-term consumption strategies that will preserve a long-term supply of the resource. The importance of behaving in the interest of the “commons”, and for the good of all, is emphasized. The “commons” is an important concept because it represents both the naturals systems (water, air, soil, forests, oceans, etc.) and the cultural patterns and traditions (intergenerational knowledge ranging from growing and preparing food, medicinal practices, arts, crafts, ceremonies, etc). The commons are generally managed by local, provincial, and national governments, however all people, through their daily actions, are also responsible for protecting and acting in the best interest of the commons.

With thanks, this activity is adapted from Population Connection, 2002, http://www.populationeducation.org/

In Part 2, students will visit the Tofino Botanical Gardens’ mudflats. The mudflats will be used as a visual stimulator for primordial swamps to help students imagine the long, slow process of creating coal, oil and natural gas from ancient organisms. The process of creating fossil fuels will be explained through an energy story. During their visit to the mudflats students will be able to explore and discover the ecosystem and organisms that live there. Students will collect some mudflat organisms that can be viewed on the dissecting scope in The Ecolodge classroom.

Prescribed Learning Outcomes

• Grade 7 Science: Assess the requirements for sustaining healthy local ecosystems; Evaluate human impacts on local ecosystems.
• Grade 6 and 7 Physical Education: Participate safely in activities in a natural or alternative setting; an outdoor experience; Follow rules, routines and procedures of safety in a variety of activities; Select and assume responsibility for assigned roles while participating in a physical activity.
• Grade 6 and 7 Social Studies: Identify and clarify a problem, issue or inquiry.

Objectives

• Students will be able to distinguish between renewable and non-renewable resources, and understand that oil, natural gas and coal were formed over millions of years from organic debris.
• Students will understand the concept of “carrying capacity”, and that natural resources are limited.
• Students will understand how to appropriately behave in the interest of common resources.
• Students will understand that the automobile fuel that their parents’ use is refined from a fossil fuel, and will be able to explain some of the implications of using fossil fuels at the current rates we are.

Materials

• tokens (such as poker chips) - 10 per student
• candies (or other reward)
• someone playing live music, or CD player and at least 8 minutes of playing time

Procedure

1. BEFORE ACTIVITY: Count out ten chips for each student playing the game. Put one-fourth of them in a separate pile.
2. Seat the students in a circle.
3. In the center of the circle, place the pile comprising one-fourth of all the chips. (For example, if you have 4 students, use 40 chips total and begin with 10 in the center. If you have 10 students, you use 100 chips and begin with 25, and so on.)
4. Do not introduce the activity, just read the following rules carefully to the students. Allow time for questions and answers to make sure students understand the rules of the game thoroughly. DO NOT explain the significance of the chips before playing the game. The rules are the only instruction the players get.

 
GAME RULES
• The chips belong to all of you, to the group.
• Music will be played, and while it is playing, each of you may take chips out of the pool of chips in the center.
• You may not put chips back into the pool once you have taken them out.
• Each of you may trade in 10 chips for a piece of candy (or other reward).
• As soon as the music stops, I will double the number of chips left in the pool at that time, and then continue the game.
• There will never, however, be more chips in the pool than there are at the start of the game. This is the maximum number of chips the pool can hold.
• You may not talk to anyone during the game.
5. Begin playing the game. You can vary the amount of time the music plays depending on how the game goes.
6. The players will most likely completely empty the pool almost instantly the first time the game is played. Point out that, as it is impossible to double zero, the game is over. Ask if they would like to try again. Each student must return all his or her chips to the pool.
7. Continue to play the game for several rounds without giving the students time to communicate with one another in between. Remember they can’t talk!
8. If needed, explain again that “when doubling the chips in the pool, remember there can never be more chips in the pool than there are at the start of the game, this is the maximum number of chips the pool can hold”. Think of the chips in the pool as fish, in a pond that only has enough room and food in it to support as many fish (or chips) as there were in the pool at the start of the game. That number is the pool’s “carrying capacity” for chips.
9. When timely, stop and ask students how they feel about the way the game is going (they might be extremely frustrated with their classmates!). As a group, help the students think of ways they could cooperate to allow more of them to get their 10 chips without depleting the pool of resources. Play again using these strategies developed by the students. The group may reach a point where they have figured out how to sustain the resource (the chips) while everyone gets a chance to exchange chips for a reward.
10. When you decide to stop playing the game, use the following discussion questions to debrief the activity.

Discussion Questions:

• What do the chips represent?

Renewable resources, such as fish or trees. Coal, gasoline, oil, iron, aluminum are examples of non-renewable resources, and therefore are not applicable in this exercise. Talk about the difference between renewable and non-renewable resources. Why do non-renewable resources not apply to this game?

• Can we draw any parallels between the way the group treated the chips and the way individuals, and society as a whole, uses or overuses renewable resources?

Deforestation: cutting trees down without planting replacements or at a rate at which newly planted trees are not given time to grow to maturity before they are harvested; or cutting down old-growth which can never be replaced. Overfishing: taking so many fish that not enough are left to reproduce and replenish the stocks for the next year. Overfarming: depleting the soil of nutrients without giving it time to regenerate.

• How many chips did each player take out of the pool in the different game variations? How many candies (or other rewards) did this generate? How did it make you feel about other members of the group?

• How did talking about the game make you play differently? After discussing strategies, did it seem differing attitudes were behind different ways you played the game? Why did some participants take as many chips as they could reach and others left some behind? How did this make you feel?

• Have you experienced a similar situation at home, with friends, in your community? (It may help to provide an analogy, such as several people in the house competing for hot water in the morning.)

• How, in the long run, can more people benefit if individuals refrain from taking too much? What sort of attitude do we need to have as individuals to achieve the goal of the greatest benefit for all – people and resources, such as trees or fish?

Take a break!

Allow students 15 minutes to prepare for mudflats field trip, have a snack, gather equipment etc.

Now move on to Dead Animals in Your Car?