TITLE: Simulated Wolf Population Studies
AUTHOR: Ann James, Klawock Elementary,
Klawock, Alaska
GRADE LEVEL: 4-6
OVERVIEW: Students become wolves and components of a
habitat in a highly-involving physical activity.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this exercise is to increase
students' awareness of the conditions which affect the size
on individual wolf packs in the wild.
OBJECTIVE(s):
1. Students will be able to identify and describe food,
water, and shelter as three essential components of a
habitat.
2. Students will be able to describe the importance of a
good habitat for animals.
3. Students will define "limiting" factors and give
examples.
4. Students will recognize that some fluctuations in a
given wolf population are natural as ecological systems
undergo a constant change.
5. Students will recognize that some fluctuations in a
given wolf population are caused by the intervention of
man.
RESOURCES/MATERIALS: This activity requires board and\or
paper on which to record population counts and habitat
conditions. Graph paper is needed for making a pictorial
study of the population changes. Optional "man
intervention" cards may be used as noted in Additional
Activities.
ACTIVITIES AND PROCEDURES:
1. Review the essential components of a wolf habitat with
students discussing particular examples of food for a
wolf population, etc.
2. Number students off in four's. Mark two parallel lines
twenty yards apart on the ground having one's line up
behind one line and the two's, three's, and four's
behind the opposite line.
3. The one's are wolves and are looking for food (hands
clamped over stomach), water (hands over mouth), and
shelter (hands held over head). During a single round
each wolf is looking for one of these components and
may not change that component during that particular
round.
4. The two's, three's, and four's are the components of
the habitat and use the same hand signals as noted
above. Each student gets to choose at the beginning of
each round which component he or she will be during
that round.
5. Each round starts with all players lined up on their
respective lines and with their backs to the students
behind the other line.
6. The teacher notes the beginning of each round. Wolves
and habitat components make their individually
determined signals. When students are ready, the
teacher counts to three at which time everyone turns
around. Wolves are allowed to run and capture one
person exhibiting the sign (habitat component) that the
wolf is looking for.
7. Successfully captured habitat components return to the
wolf line and then become wolves increasing the wolf
population. Wolves that do not find what they need,
die and become part of the habitat for the next round.
8. The teacher and\or students keep track of the wolf
population for each round. (It is also useful to note
habitat conditions for each round. for example:
drought, scarcity of food, etc.) Continue until you
have done about fifteen rounds.
9. Data can then be graphed.
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER:
After graphing the data, ask the students to summarize some
of the things they have learned from this activity. Discuss
what wolves need to survive; what are some of the natural
limiting factors that affect their survival; whether
wildlife populations in general are static; whether nature
is ever really in balance; etc.
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES:
1. Sometimes "man" can become a factor allowing the
teacher to impose such interventions as: hunters,
trappers, destruction of the natural habitat by man,
etc., during a round. "Man intervention" cards may be
made up previous to this activity and used to show the
various affects of man on the wolf population and the
habitat.
2. This activity can also be compared to the research done
on the Hudson Bay trappers in early American history.
These trappers kept counts of snowshoe hare and lynx
populations over a time span of over a hundred years.
(The snowshoe hare population seemed to peak and then
crash about every seven to nine years, repeating the
process over each comparable time period. The lynx
population did the same thing - except that they did it
one year after the hare population.) This data can be
graphed and several questions addressed: Which animal
is the predator? The prey? Are predators controlling
the prey, or are prey controlling the predators? Is
this like the wolf habitat game we just played? Who
controls?
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John Kurilecjmk@ofcn.org