Designed To Fit
Discovery Center
Overview: Wetlands Extinction Game- Students explore wildlife and other animals as a way to manage problems on National Wildlife Refuges.
Time: 20 minutes

Location: Indoors

Learner Outcomes:

  1. Students will be able to identify three ways wildlife are used to help manage National Wildlife Refuges.
  2. Students will be able to correctly match the management tool with a problem.

Materials

  1. Extinction Game Board
  2. Extinction Critter Cards
  3. Habitat Change Cards
  4. 1 Die


Preparation

  1. Lay out map and problem cards
  2. Set out materials for use by students.

Read. . .

  • Animals may become extinct when their habitat changes significantly. The Extinction game will help you discover the kinds of changes that may affect the survival of certain animals.

You will need. . .

  1. The twenty cards for each of the Critters, you will want to have 20 blank cards in case any of the animal populations grow beyond 20 members.
  2. Make two copies of each of the Habitat Change Cards.
  3. Make one copy of each of the Game board tokens.
  4. One game board.
  5. One die.

Do. . .

  1. Place the Extinction Cards face down in a pile on the table. (After drawing an extinction place it on the bottom of the pile.)
  2. Roll the die to determine who goes first.
  3. Then, in turn each player throws the die and moves the number of spaces shown on the die. Remove or add animal cards to your pile as required by the extinction card.
  4. If your animal becomes extinct you are out of the game.
  5. Extinction is a process that takes some time. This period may be represented by traveling a second time around the game board.
  6. After you have finished the game discuss the results with your classmates.