Food Web Jenga
Main Image
Main Image
Subjects
Students will learn about food chains and trophic levels, and then gain an appreciation for the complexity and interconnectedness of ecosystems and how food chains are affected by environmental events using a game of Jenga with colour-coded blocks.
What You Need
Materials:
- 23 green blocks
- 13 blue blocks
- 11 red blocks
- 1 black block
- Laminated set of game cards. See attached Word documents for print-ready cards - you can choose from Grasslands or Canadian card sets.
For the coloured Jenga blocks, you can purchase a plain wooden Jenga set with a minimum of 48 blocks and paint them.
Guide:
What To Do
We are going to play a game to see how different factors can affect food chains, and what happens to the food chain when something disrupts it.
- 23 green blocks - grass
- 13 blue blocks - grasshoppers
- 11 red blocks - snakes
- 1 black block - hawk
- Cards
Instructions:
- Split into groups of 3-4 students.
- Stack Jenga pieces with green on the bottom, then blue, then red, with the black piece in the middle on the top row between two red blocks.
- Shuffle the cards and place them face down.
- Take turns drawing cards from the deck. Read the card aloud and follow the instructions. Only the block being removed or returned may be touched.
- Put the used cards into a discard pile.
- Place removed blocks into a discard pile off to the side.
- Continue taking turns until the tower falls and the food chain collapses or all cards are used up.
- If groups finish early, they can reset the blocks and play again.