Nature Games 2

Another activity we'd do at camp was an "Around the World". I would have the students envision that the basketball court was a map of the world, and ask them to move around to different places where they might find certain things (Where they were born, where they would find an elephant, where they'd be in a desert, etc.) I loved seeing all the different answers! After the elephant question, the kids were in Asia, Africa, India, the LA Zoo...all across the globe :)

I liked this activity because it not only got the kids thinking about different places around the world, and gave opportunity to discuss different ecosystems they might not have learned a lot about, but it got them thinking spatially, about where places would be in relation to each other.

The game I saw children enjoying the most was a game showing different adaptations animals might use in the wild to get resources or avoid being caught by predators. We had a blindfolded student in the middle of the group, with an object, representing a resource, at their feet. During a round we'd point at students to approach the center and try to get the object without being detected. The blindfolded person had to point where they heard noise in order to get people out. The people had to return to their spots with the object in order to be successful. I saw so many different techniques. I saw distraction by throwing twigs in other places (even nearer other players in order to get them out) or when a player only moved when another player was making noise. We witnessed competition when several people reached the center and back to their original locations undetected, but since there was only one object, only one player was successful. We got to see techniques from the point of view of the sneaky prey and from the point of view of the keen predator. We got to discuss why an animal might not be able to use their sight to detect food or dangers. Honestly, watching how the kids reacted to the parameters of this game was super informative to me!