Kelda O. wrote:
I'm co-teaching a permaculture course this fall, and the other teacher and I really like using games while we 'teach'. The students love it also, (as evidenced in 'best of yesterday' info...).
I've been trying to think of some good ecology games for our topic next weekend. I like a 'cougar-deer' Mother May I, but am trying to think of something that incorporates plants too. As I'm brainstorming about it I thought I'd ask others. Ecology is such a big topic, applied to things like agroforestry and forest gardens.
Any teachers have good games for that one?
There are some great outdoor games in "Coyote's Guide" (Jon Young has been promoting it from Regenerative Design Institute / Wilderness Awareness School).
Some of the ones we used that worked really well with kids, and could work with adults:
- "Story of the Day":
recap learning at the end of the day, using an activity that engages different senses.
- draw a map of where you went / worked, or of the patterns you learned to recognize
- have a guessing game, where individuals and groups play charades or make a tableau and other guess what it represents. My favorite was a student with a red sweatshirt being the "tail" for a red-tailed hawk, with another couple students being the body and wings.
- Have a time to look up any unanswered questions in wildlife
books, online, etc. and share the answers.
- Make a 'spirit plate' or tableau at the end of the day, with tokens of insights or memorable learning experiences. Have each students be responsible for collecting at least one token during the day and explaining its meaning as they add it to the tableau.
Sit Spot / Observation
- Have participants go into the woods/garden/find a quiet place for a fixed amount of time, each day. Sit still and observe. They can go with a question in mind, or just practice breathing. Allow journalling sometimes, but not always.
- For kids / more playful adults, you can play "eagle eye" or 'camoflage.' Have one person stand in the 'nest' and count to 30, while others hide in plain sight. They must be able to see the 'eagle' from their hiding spot, but try not to be seen. The eagle names people as s/he sees them, by name or description. If there are a number who can't be found, then eagle closes his eyes again and says, "Ten steps forward! 10,9,8..."
- 'Sardines' is similar - one person hides, then everyone looks, and as they find the person they crowd into the same hiding place, in physical contact like a can of sardines. The last person to find them hides next time.
Treasure Trails:
Finding things by smell can be very memorable. You can shake-n-bake essential oils and
wood chips, or use the herb garden, to mark scent-trails for a 'scavenger hunt' or 'buried treasure.'
From
Cob Cottage Company:
Barefoot, Silent, 'Nature' Walk:
If you have the availability of a nice undisturbed ecology and an ajacent clear-cut or degraded lot, a nature walk with the option of going barefoot can be very visceral. Silent walk, show different secrets without words, like crushing a leaf to smell, or feeling the textures of clay, duff, punk logs, dewberry spines, thistledown. Have the line of students non-verbally pass these examples on; and have a second instructor some ways down the line as a 'booster' to adjust the quality of the
experience. The difference in texture, smell, and biodiversity
should make its own point.
You could do something similar with an established permie garden and a couple of ajacent yards. Get people really observing rather than just thinking about the concepts.
Caveman Lectures:
My husband and his friend once presented an entire lesson on foundations and drainage using only caveman grunts instead of words. I've done that on masonry or digging demos, and it's very effective if you're in a lecture/questions rut. Gets people out of their heads and observing with hands, eyes, bodies. And laughing.
From OMSI / the JASON
Project Square
Yard Transects:
You can also do a explicit biodiversity survey, where you set out a square yard (or use equal-sized hula hoops) and count the number of different recognizable species in the sample areas. Maybe also measure topsoil depth or soil qualities, to bring home the point.
Crumple Your Own Watershed:
Crumple a piece of paper into a 'mountain' or a series of ridges and valleys, have participants draw where they think the rivers, lakes, streams, etc. should go, and place some features like a
dairy barn, houses, roads, gardens, cities, etc. Then squirt the page with a spray bottle and see if the water flows as predicted. You can see the 'runoff' from the buildings, too.
Other multi-sensory learning options:
Dance The Plants:
Just acting out the names or roles is huge. Maybe learn the ASL for the different plants, or basic roles like tree, bush, bean, flower. Or assign each student to be the 'keeper' of a particular quality - nitrogen fixing, minerals, taproots, disease resistance, beneficial insects, bird habitat, people food, livestock food, etc. Then you could have a 'pop quiz' or performance where people dance/gesture the roles as you name the species.
Zone Games:
There are board games that illustrate the 'zones' principle. Anything that's a race to accumulate resources, where you get to place the resources in the first place.
Handicrafts / Puzzles:
Many handicrafts also teach you better body mechanics, so maybe making something like Ivy Baskets or dreamcatchers with tokens from prior learnings?
Teamwork:
There are complicated games that most people know, where you need cooperation between different roles to succeed. Maybe soccer, tag football, capture the flag, or ultimate frisbee, where participants are trying to get each other's '
energy' but cooperation is encouraged.
Resource Dominoes:
You can do a variant on the barter game, where people are dealt a variety of different resource 'cards' and have to assemble their basic needs. Set up cards for different ecological roles, and offering cards, and see if they can play 'human dominoes' to get all the things they need lined up next to them.
Singing. the good songs.