Publication Extract

The following extract is instructions to play an educational game, from the BES Publication, "Food Chains and Food Webs"

GAME 2: Ball of wool web game

This activity demonstrates the complexity of food webs and how living things in a habitat are interrelated. It illustrates that the sun is the ultimate source of energy and it also shows the effects of human activity. It is best played in groups of about 15.

Resources

A selection of pictures of animals and plants of a chosen habitat or ecosystem (e.g. a woodland). These can be drawn by the children or photocopied from the Appendix. Each child needs one picture. Make sure you have appropriate numbers of plants, herbivores and carnivores, but do not use pond or sea animals, as they will not fit into a food web with the rest. Punch holes in each picture and attach a loop of string so that it can be worn around the neck.
A picture of the sun, which also needs to be worn around the neck.
Balls of string or wool - different colours help.

Playing the game

The game can be played outdoors or indoors, but space is required. The children stand or sit in a circle and each is given one of the pictures to wear.
A child is chosen to be the sun and stands in the middle. The'sun' is given a ball of wool/ string, which is unwound and passed to one of the 'plants' to hold, with the 'sun' keeping hold of the loose end. Further wool/string is passed to one of the 'herbivores' and then to one or more carnivores'.
Repeat this process, starting with a new ball of wool for each food chain. Eventually, as the wool criss-crosses the circle, you will end up with a magnificent food web! Using the plant and animal illustrations in the Appendix, you may get something like the diagram on the next page.
To illustrate how humans might affect animals and plants in a habitat, describe a scenario, for example someone sprays all the plants with herbicides. The 'plants' 'die', tug on the strings connecting them to a 'herbivore' and fall to the ground. (If they are sitting they could curl up into a ball.) Everyone who feels the tug then also 'dies' and falls to the ground, as they have lost their food supplies. The repercussions are felt throughout the web and eventually only the 'sun' is left standing.