The document describes a game to teach students about limiting factors for animal populations. Students will be divided into groups representing deer and different habitat resources like food, water, and shelter. The deer must find and match with their needed resource to survive each round, or they will die off and be removed from the game. The number of surviving deer will be tracked between rounds to create a graph showing how the population changes over time. Finally, students will answer questions about what was learned about animal needs and how populations fluctuate from the simulation.

1. Oh Deer!
A game to learn about limiting
factors
8SCIENCE: Tues. Nov. 2nd

2. Information to know before we start:
• What are the most important things that
animals need to survive?
– Food
– Shelter
– Space
– Water
• In today’s game we will be learning about
three of these: food, shelter and water

3. Game rules
• I will divide you up into 4 groups – numbered 1, 2, 3, or 4
• When we go outside, all 1s should stand together on one
side of a line and the rest of 2,3 and 4 will stand together in
one group on the other side of a line
• 1s are deer, and 2,3 and 4 will be the different parts of the
habitat (food, water or shelter) that an animal needs to
survive
• Each part of the habitat has a special symbol: PRACTICE
– Food – hands on stomach
– Water – hands over mouth
– Shelter – hands over head like a point / v – shape
*When we get outside to the plaza by the library, I will show
you where to stand

4. Game rules continued…
• The goal is for the deer to get the ‘resource’ they
need to survive: MATCHING
– The deer must match with the habitat part they are
looking for and bring them back to the deer side. You
must high-five when you match-up. The habitat
person becomes a deer.
– If a deer does not find a matching partner, it ‘dies’ and
they are recycled to become part of the habitat group
• Each round I will be keeping track of the number of deer that are still
‘alive’, so we can create a graph of our results and see the changes in the
deer population
• We are going to play about 10 - 15 rounds

5. Changes to deer population 8A
0
5
10
15
20
25
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Number of Deer Left
Number of Deer Left

6. Changes to Deer Population 8B

7. Finally…what happened?
Answer these questions as your Science Journal for
today:
1) From the game, what have we learned about
what animals need to survive?
2) Do wildlife populations stay the same or do they
fluctuate (change a lot)?
3) What do you think would have happened if I
introduced a ‘disease’ (someone that could catch
you when trying to run back to your deer side) ?