BEAVER GAMEBEAVER GAME
Park rangers protect animals and plants from people who would hunt and collect them. Read the following information to the students and play the beaver game to learn more about the policy to protect everything in a national park.
| The first fur trading site established in
Northwest Indiana is preserved at the Bailly Homestead in Indiana Dunes National
Lakeshore. During the 1820’s, Joseph Bailly built a cabin for Potawatomi Indians to
come to trade furs for metal or cloth goods. Beaver pelts were the most valuable because
stove pipe top hats made from beaver fur were the fashion of the time. We will play a game about the fur trade. Imagine you are a Potawatomi Indian and Joseph Bailly just arrived with many trade goods that will change your life and wealth |
Objective:
Students will be able to explain how over-exploitation of beaver caused them to
disappear from this region.
Materials: Use 150 tokens to represent beaver.
1. Count the number of students and multiply by three. This is the number of tokens you need to start the game.
2. Every year the Potawatomi would trap beavers for trade. Each student will decide how good of a trapper he or she wants to be. Inform them that the more beaver they get, the more trade goods they will receive.
3. With the students sitting in a circle, place the tokens representing beavers into a hat or box. As the hat is passed the students can choose to take one, two, or three tokens to indicate how successful they were trapping beaver this year. Taking three tokens indicates an excellent hunter. No talking is allowed as they pass the hat.
4. When the hat is returned to you, count the number of tokens left. Place an equal number of tokens into the hat to represent new babies produced by the remaining beavers.
5. Pretend it’s a new year and pass the hat to allow the students to choose one to three beaver tokens. Expect the students to be greedy and all the beaver tokens will be gone.
6. Allow the students to play a second time but encourage them to talk to each other. Hopefully, they will limit the number of tokens they take so there will be a sustainable population.
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