In this activity, students will get to mimic the resident killer whale food chain. Students will be assigned a marine animal and get a recycled plastic bag that represents the stomach. Herring will find plankton markers, salmon will eat the herring, and resident killer whales will eat the salmon. Once a student gets tagged, they hand over their bag to their predator. When there is only a couple salmon left, the game gets stopped and students discuss the amount of food at each level of the food chain.
For round two, the students will mimic the transient killer whale which has an extra level to its food chain. Students should discover that there is less energy available to the transient killer whale than the resident killer whale.
This activity would be a great add on during teaching of food chains, energy levels, and trophic levels in biology units for students in grades nine to twelve.
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