OH, DEER!

(11/7): Students in Ms. Swain and Mrs. Whitworth's sixth grade science classes learned just how quickly a population of deer can increase and decrease based on the availability of resources. Random students were either a resource (food, water, or space to live), while others were deer. Resources and deer turned their back to each other and made the sign for which resource they chose to be, and deer made the sign for the resource they wanted to hunt. If the deer did not find his/her resource, he/she became a need, causing the population of deer to decrease. If the deer found the resource he/she were hunting, then that resource became a deer, representing how balanced ecosystem can help a population increase. They loved acting out their parts! They took the data from 12 rounds of this activity and created a line graph indicating the increase and decrease of the deer population over 12 "years". Learning to read graphs, charts, diagrams and creating them are major skills that students will use throughout life.