Learners become butterflies to complete an activity that has them collect tokens that represent food, water, and shelter. They must collect their necessities while in competition with other butterflies in the same area. Once the collection phase ends, they analyze what they have collected to determine if they survive to the next round and compare their results with the other butterflies to identify the limiting factor in the area.

Concepts

habitats, butterfly life cycle, butterflies, limiting factors

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Have pupils create foldables to take notes on the necessities of life and how they pertain to butterflies: food, water, and shelter
• Show videos of different butterflies to demonstrate the variety in species

Classroom Considerations

• Requires a large outdoor space for the activity

Pros

• Uses a kinesthetic approach to instruct on limiting factors
• Offers questions for assessment 

Cons

• None