USING GAMES TO TEACH ECOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM
From:
VOLTOLINI <[email protected]>
Date:
Tue, 3 Feb 2009 09:23:57 -0200
DEAR FRIENDS,
I AM TEACHING A FIRST SEMESTER SCIENCE INTRODUCTION COURSE FOR BIOLOGY STUDENTS. WE DEVELOPE SEVERAL ECOLOGY FIELD PROJECTS DURING THE COURSE AND THE STUDENTS LIKE A LOT THIS APPROACH.
BUT... I WOULD LIKE TO USE A CLASSROOM GAME THIS YEAR, A GAME TO TEACH HOW
SCIENCE WORKS! I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE IDEAS COM PEOPLE INTERESTED IN DIFFERENT
WAYS TO TEACH ECOLOGY IN CLASSROOM. IDEAS TO DISCUSS HOW TO PLAN, TO SAMPLE,
DISCUSS AND DISCOVER SOMETHING AS A FUTURE SCIENTIST. MAYBE THERE ARE SIMPLE
GAMES USING ORDINARY CARDS, DICE, PICTURES, SIMPLE OBJECTS, VIDEOS, ETC. AND I
WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS AND TO SHARE EXPERIENCIES WITH TEACHERS.
THANKS FOR ANY HELP !!!
[note: The game broadly known as "Table Tennis" is commonly known in US
as "Ping-Pong"--reversing each word of this name gives the name
"Gnip-Gnop".]
-----------------------------
"Teaching Sampling Theory with Gnip-Gnops"
Gnip-Gnops are small, shelly creatures, of assorted coloration, which
live, in mixed populations, in bags. The objective of the exercise is
to estimate the number of Gnip-Gnops of each color, and the total
number, in an experimental community.
-----
Materials required:
-- 200 table tennis balls
-- six colors of spray paint (perhaps red, blue, green, yellow, brown
and black)
-- one opaque cloth bag about 75 cm x 50 cm with a draw-string closure
(perhaps an old pillow-case)
-- one water-color felt-tip marker
-----
Preparation:
-- divide the Gnip-Gnops into six groups: 5, 15, 20, 40, 55, 65
-- spray-paint one hemisphere of each Gnip-Gnop, using a different color
for each group, allow the paint to dry
-- place the Gnip-Gnops into their home (the bag) and mix thoroughly
-----
Activity:
-- pass the bag around the class, along with the water-color marker
-- each student extracts one Gnip-Gnop, without looking into the bag,
marks its unpainted hemisphere, retains it, reports it to the
instructor, and passes the bag and marker to the next student
-- the instructor records on the lecture-board the usual first-capture
data of count-by-kind and effort-per-kind
-- continue capturing and marking until about half the Gnip-Gnops are
captured and marked
-- it may be necessary to pass the bag around the class more than once
-- return all capture-marked Gnip-Gnops to their home
-- pass the bag around the class again
-- each student extracts one Gnip-Gnop, reports it to the instructor,
and passes the bag to the next student
-- the instructor records the usual second-capture data
-- continue second capture until about a third of the Gnip-Gnops are
captured
-- the Gnip-Gnops will need to be cleaned of the watercolor marker
before the next execution of the exercise
-----
Instruction:
The instructor leads the class through the operation of mark-recapture
population-and-variety (color) estimation, explains the arithmetic
derivation of the calculations, explains the deviation of the
observed-computed numbers from the instructor's pre-set knowledge of the
actual population and color numbers.
-----
Have fun!
--
Ken Leonard, Ph.D. Candidate
The University of Georgia
Odum School of Ecology (Bradford Lab)
517 Biological Sciences Bldg.
Athens, GA 30602 US
"The Universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits
to grow sharper."
-- Eden Philpotts
[email protected], [email protected]
http://kleonard.myweb.uga.edu/
1+404.307.6425
