Simulation Game
This is a two-stage game, which will help you to realise that with co-operation, a resource can last indefinitely, but if you exploit a renewable resource faster than it can recover, the resource will collapse.
Equipment (click to download)
Players
Total of four - three fishers and a "banker" who looks after the resource.
Game One: The Fishing Race
Objective: To catch the most fish.
Rules:
- All 30 fish go into a "pool", looked after by the banker.
- Each player has a toss of the dice in turn. (Select or toss for the person who starts first.)
- You can "catch" as many fish from the pool as the number you toss.
- At the end of each round, the banker tallies up the catch for each player.
- If there are fewer fish left than the number you throw (eg, three left and you throw a five), you get to take all the remaining fish.
That's the end of the game - too bad if the other players didn't have a chance to complete the last round.
The banker does a final tally. The winner is the person with the most fish.
The banker keeps a tally of how many "rounds" it took before all the fish were taken.
Game Two: Fishing for the Future
This game is to be partly designed by you, and then played. A group who has just completed Game One should play it.
Objective: To work out a system for catching fish, where each player has a "fair go", and to make the game last longer (more rounds) than Game One did.
Basic rules:
- At the start of the game there are only 6 fish in the pool. The banker retains the other 24.
- After each round, the banker feeds another 6 fish into the pool.
- If, at the end of a round, there aren't enough fish in the pool, then your fishery has collapsed - the game ends.
- The banker keeps a tally of how many rounds have been played.
- The winning team is the team who has made their game last the greatest number of rounds.
Your rules:
Before you start, work out some rules to add to the basic rules, so that the game will last as many rounds as possible, and everyone gets a fair shot.
When you've designed your rules, play the game and record how many rounds it lasts.