This game will allow students to observe how the starting population size of trees in a forest and the rate of deforestation affect forests over time.
Students will work in groups of four to complete the game, record the changes in the number of trees on the worksheet, and graph the data.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This resource is interactive and involves role-playing skills.
The activity combines math, science, and social studies concepts.
Additional Prerequisites
Teachers need to enter their email addresses to download the lesson.
Teachers must gather supplies for the game.
Differentiation
Students can plot their graphs on graphing paper or use the linked digital graphing tool.
If students need support, the teacher could walk four students through the simulation as a demonstration for the whole class. Teachers could project the worksheet on the board and the class could work together to fill in the numbers.
Students could apply this concept to other natural resources that must be managed in a sustainable way.
Spanish classes could use this lesson to help students apply their knowledge in reading, writing, and speaking Spanish.
Other resources on this topic include this video on Indigenous sustainable forestry practices, this video that shows how nature can balance and restore ecosystems, and this activity on learning about climate history from tree stumps.
Scientist Notes
The resource will build the capacity of students on forest resources management, including the analysis of the supply chain. This is recommended for classroom.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
5-ESS3-1 Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-1 Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.6.6-8 Explain how changes in supply and demand cause changes in prices and quantities of goods and services, labor, credit, and foreign currencies.
D2.Eco.3.3-5 Identify examples of the variety of resources (human capital, physical capital, and natural resources) that are used to produce goods and services.
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.8.3-5 Explain how human settlements and movements relate to the locations and use of various natural resources.
Common Core Math Standards (CCSS.MATH)
Geometry (K-8)
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.G.A.1 Use a pair of perpendicular number lines, called axes, to define a coordinate system, with the intersection of the lines (the origin) arranged to coincide with the 0 on each line and a given point in the plane located by using an ordered pair of numbers, called its coordinates. Understand that the first number indicates how far to travel from the origin in the direction of one axis, and the second number indicates how far to travel in the direction of the second axis, with the convention that the names of the two axes and the coordinates correspond (e.g., x-axis and x-coordinate, y-axis and y-coordinate).
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.G.A.2 Represent real world and mathematical problems by graphing points in the first quadrant of the coordinate plane, and interpret coordinate values of points in the context of the situation.
