Play shrinking habitat

You’ll need

Groundsheet
Blanket

Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.

Planning and setting up this activity

Be careful of young people falling over as the groundsheet shrinks. You may want to play this game on a softer surface, such as grass.
Books you could read to explore habitat loss include ‘The Journey Home’ by Frann Preston-Gannon.

Running this activity

Gather everyone together and ask if everyone knows what a habitat is. A habitat is a place where plants, animals and microorganisms live. It could be a tree, a sand dune, a coral reef, or simply the wildflowers growing in the cracks of pavements.
Tell everyone there are lots of different types of habitats. There’s woodland, ocean, desert, rainforest, urban, coastal, pond and polar habitats. Can anyone think of animals or plants that might live in these habitats, or which habitat they live in?
Ask everyone how they think humans can impact animal and plant habitats. They can cause habitats to get destroyed or damaged, which is called habitat loss. Habitat loss is happening across the world, from shrinking rainforests to melting ice caps. Some of the main reasons habitats are lost can be when people farm too much, fish a lot, build more houses and cities, chop down too many trees, and when the weather changes a lot. These things make it hard for animals to find places to live.
Explain that you’ll be playing a game to show how hard it is for animals and plants when habitats are lost. They’ll all be on a blanket or groundsheet, but it’ll shrink, so they need to be careful not to fall off. The aim of the game is to be the team that keeps everyone on the blanket or groundsheet the longest.
Divide the group into three different habitat teams, such as rainforest, woodland and polar. Each team should choose different animals from their habitat that they can be.
Lay a blanket or groundsheet on the floor and ask everyone to get on it. Ask everyone if they’ve lots of space in the habitat. If they can, people could move around.
Now, oh no, some of the habitat is being lost because people are chopping down trees. Fold the groundsheet or blanket to remove a quarter of the space. Encourage everyone to help their team to stay on the groundsheet.
Ask everyone if they can still move around in the same way now that some of their habitat has disappeared.
When someone can no longer fit on the blanket or groundsheet, they’re out.
Next, uh oh, some more of the habitat is being lost as people are building more houses. Fold the groundsheet or blanket to remove a quarter of the space.
Keep going and removing habitat due to different reasons, such as people littering, pollution, too much farming, too much fishing, someone’s building a road or climate change is happening, which means the Earth’s temperature is getting hotter.
Eventually, there won’t be enough space for everyone to fit on the blanket or groundsheet.
The team with most people left on the groundsheet at the end wins.

Reflection

This activity was all about habitats. Can you remember the different types of habitats that are on Earth? Which one’s you favourite?

Lots of animals and plants live in habitats that are shrinking too because of habitat loss. Can you remember what habitat loss is? What can cause habitat loss?

In the game, you had to pretend to be different animals from a habitat. Which habitat or animal were you? What happened to the blanket or groundsheet in the game? It was shrinking. What was this like? This was like an animal’s habitat shrinking. How did you feel when some of your team could no longer fit on the groundsheet or blanket? How might animals feel when their habitat is shrinking?

This game might have also tested your balance. What was the hardest bit? Did you stay on the blanket or groundsheet until the end of the game? How did you do this?

We can help look after animals and habitats. How did you try to help each other? Can anyone think of anything we could do locally to help protect habitats, either near us or around the world? What would you like to do to reduce habitat loss near us?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Active games: The game area should be free of hazards. Explain the rules of the game clearly and have a clear way to communicate that the game must stop when needed. Take a look at our guidance on running active games safely.