Blog #6

At Orange, there is a class called Outdoor Science. In this class, the students learn hands-on about basic chemistry, biology, and physics. When the students are in 4th grade, they get a 2-day "Outdoor Science" event, where they travel through different stations led by different teachers. There is a Tie-dye station on solubility, an egg drop station on physics, a car racing station about physics, A station with the music teachers where you sing a song about the circle of life, a recyclable art station with the art teachers, a predator and prey station about the food chain, and some others that I have already forgotten. The gym teachers were leading the Predator and Prey station, and they developed three fun games to demonstrate the relationship between animals. The station started with a 10-minute lesson on what a predator and prey are, what an ecosystem is, how/why animal populations fluctuate, adaptation, what it means to be extinct, and factors that can affect animal populations. After the lesson, the kids go on to play their first game which is a tagging game. In this game, the runners start on one side of the field and have to make it to the other side, collect a piece of food (a tennis ball), and return back to the start without getting eaten (tagged) by a predator. This game is meant to show that as food gets more scarce (when there are fewer tennis balls), the prey is at a disadvantage. The second game is similar, with a home base on either side of the field, and hula hoops spread out in the middle. Here, the Hula Hoops served as trees or rocks that the prey could camouflage and hide behind (if you are standing in a hoop a predator cannot tag you). Prey has to go from one home base to the other, without getting eaten by a predator. If a prey is eaten, it becomes a predator. This game teaches the kids about population fluctuation, and how the ratio of predator to prey works. In the final game, the class makes a circle, and two students are chosen and blindfolded. One student is designated the predator, and the other is the prey. They play a Marco Polo-style game, using their listening to avoid the predator or find the prey. The goal of this station was to show how certain animals use other senses to survive.