Habitat Scramble

• In this activity, students will act as a species trying to survive in a particular habitat and learn how changes to the habitat can affect the species that live there.
• Students will learn about features of a habitat, carrying capacity, factors that can disturb a habitat, and how humans contribute to habitat changes.
  

Positives

• The video provides detailed instructions for how to set up and implement this game. 
• This is a fun, hands-on way for students to learn about more specific aspects of habitats. 

Additional Prerequisites

• Teachers will need a circle of yarn, string, a hula hoop, or some other way of identifying the habitats for each group of 4 students within the class. 
• Teachers will need to make a set of habitat cards for each student. Consider using scrap paper or other items like beads/dry beans/blocks/etc. for some of the cards, as they are just meant to represent air, water, food, shelter, soil, and space.
  

Differentiation

• In order to build background knowledge, consider having students watch this short PBS video about habitat basics or this video about what a habitat is before playing the game. 
• As an extension activity, put students into groups to have them do a deeper dive into a specific habitat using these videos on rainforests, woodlands, or oceans. 
• As an independent activity to practice new learning, allow students to play this interactive media game where they match animals with their correct ecological habitats. 
• After playing this game, art classes could look at this watercolor by Jill Pelto and discuss how habitat degradation is impacting forest species. 

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.