The Great Food Hunt

Level 2

Curriculum Area - Science

Background

This activity involves students attempting to locate 'animals' in various environments and drawing conclusions about the survival value of structures the animals possess.

This activity is based on Primary Investigations 4, Teachers' Resource Book, p. 88

Outcomes

• formulate questions to guide observations and investigations
• conduct simple tests and describe observations
• identify patterns and groupings in information to draw conclusions
• link observable features to their functions in familiar living things

Materials and preparation

Students should work in two teams:

To make the model animals, follow these instructions:

• Food dye - red, green, yellow and blue (you will need to have six colours all together and could use the 'natural' colour of the macaroni and mix the food dyes to make the sixth colour). Sutuents should wear art smocks when dying the macaroni.
• 240 pieces of macaroni, plastic bowls
• Place 60 pieces of macaroni in a bowl. Add a few drops of dye and stir or shake. Allow to dry.
• Do this for all 6 colours

Activity

• Team One selects 3 different locations around the school where their 'animals' might like to live. The Home Types (or habitats) should be about 5 x 5 metre square, have different vegetation (eg garden bed with trees, grassy oval) and have places for small 'animals' to hide. Students might decide to peg out each area with string. Twenty 'animals' of each type should be placed in each Home Type.
  
  Students should remember that small animals rarely stand about waiting to be eaten. Rather they hide as much as possible.
  
• Team Two hunts for the 'animals' for exactly 5 minutes in the designated areas. Successful finds are taken to the classroom for sorting and counting. The animals are placed in the container labelled with a description of the Home Type (habitat) where they were found.
  
• Students count the number of each type (that is, colour) of 'animal' found in each location. This information should be recorded on a bar graph.

Follow the activity with a discussion as outlined below.

1. What did each 'Home Type' or habitat look like?
2. How many animals of each colour were found (and eaten) from each Home Type (habitat)?
3. Which colour was most effective for hiding in each Home Type?
4. Did some colours work better in different Home Types?

5. Ask students for ways of altering the 'animals' colours to improve their ability to hide.
6. Would patterns be more useful than plain colours? Students might decide to swap team tasks and repeat the investigation with different colours or patterns.
7. Which colours would you choose if you were a bird looking for a sweet grub to eat? Survey the answers of the members of the class to this question. Record the class numbers and graph.
8. What sort of behaviour would work best for each colour? Some colours work best if the animal stays still and hides. Others work best if the animal advertises that it might taste nasty.
9. What parts of an animal help it detect a predator (an animal that might eat it.)
10. What parts of an animal help it detect its prey (an animal that it might eat.)

Extension Activities

Research the animals from either the Australian, African or Antarctic Food Web and notes. How are the animals coloured or patterned? Which colours are found on Australian animals. How might these colours help an animal avoid being eaten?