This workshop presents a series of ecology assignments centered around the ECOLOGIES card game and used in our second semester introductory biology course at CSU Fresno. ECOLOGIES is an inexpensive, educational and highly versatile game developed by biology instructor Matthew Montrose, with gameplay based on real examples of trophic niches. In ECOLOGIES, players must use organism cards to build food webs within one or more diverse biomes, with the goal of obtaining enough points to win the game. A single card deck can be played by 1-6 players, with one game encompassing ~75 minutes. In this three-part workshop, participants are introduced to the ECOLOGIES game within the context of food webs and trophic cascades. The workshop begins by describing trophic cascades, with examples of direct and indirect effects. In Part 1, participants draw food webs connecting different species found in Yellowstone National Park while brainstorming the potential impacts of removing gray wolves from this ecosystem. The impact of trophic cascades created by the presence and absence of gray wolves are then revealed in the brief video, ???Wolves of Yellowstone???. Next, participants rework their food web based on information in the video and enhance it with examples of direct/indirect effects. In Part 2, participants play a round of ECOLOGIES in groups of 3-4 to become familiar with the game???s biomes, organisms and biotic/abiotic factors. When the game has ended, participants begin Part 3 and create their own ECOLOGIES biome by selecting a real-world habitat and identifying organisms that act as producers, consumers and/or scavengers within it, as well as potential biotic/abiotic factors. The workshop concludes with a discussion on modifying the game to fit specific lesson plans and future directions.
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