Carrying Capacity and Population Game

This lesson teaches about the concept of an Ecosystem’s Carrying Capacity and Population Growth which is part of the Life Sciences Matatag Curriculum: Grade 10, 4th Quarter.

How to play the Game

Keep your Snake alive as long as you can! Snakes will die if they don’t eat any mice. To eat a mouse, the Snake must touch it. Move the snake by clicking/touching the screen on where you want it to go.

If any of the snakes eat too many mice, it will have a baby and make another snake. Every few seconds, more mice will appear. At the end of the game, a graph will show the growth and decline of the Snake population.

Play the Game!

Use your device in landscape mode to make the game bigger.

Questions for Students

What’s the longest you kept your Snake alive?
Why was it difficult to keep your Snake alive as the game took longer?
Based on the graph at the end, when did the population of the snakes increase the most?
Based on the graph at the end, when did the increase in the population of the snakes start to slow down?
If the game were an ecosystem, what is the estimated Carrying Capacity of the Snakes in the ecosystem? (you may base your answer on the graph at the end)
Discuss what limited the population of the Snakes in the game and why the increase slowed down as the carrying capacity was reached.
In an ecosystem, what else do you think can limit the population of a species?