“Oh Deer!” Purpose of Game: To portray Carrying Capacity. (The availability of habitat components and the number or animals the habitat can support.) Fundamental Habitat Components: Food, Water, Shelter, and Space Even with these essential components some animals do not survive. Other Limiting Factors include disease, predator and prey relationships, weather conditions, accidents, environmental pollution, and habitat destruction. Nature is never in “balance”, but is constantly changing!!!

“Oh Deer!” Directions All #1 students will go to one boundary line/ the rest of you go to the other (outside) 10 Rounds- Record # of deer in each round Face outwards until teacher says “Oh Deer!” At that point, turn and face each other and hold the symbol for one component (food, water or shelter) Walk to find a partner with the same component IF you match up, then you survived and reproduced! Your “component” partner now joins the deer side IF you didn’t find the component you needed, you died and must join the habitat side.

Finish your graph SILENTLY Create A Graph 1. Draw an x and y axis on notebook paper 2. On the x axis, label it YEARS and record the number of years that data was collected (1, 2, 3, 4…to the last round). 3. On the y axis, label it NUMBER OF DEER, 1 – 28. Finish your graph SILENTLY

Data for Absent students: Year 1: 15 Year 2: 24 Year 3: 8 Year 4: 16 Year 5: 24 Year 6: 8 Year 7: 14 Year 8: 8 Year 9: 16 Year 10: 22 Fire which destroyed habitat and food supply

Write a Conclusion 1. Summarize the activity and what the game demonstrated. 2. How did the population of deer change from one year to the next? 3. Were there any limiting factors? (something that limited the amount of deer that survived that year) If so, what were they, and how was the population affected by them?