Getting By (The Milk Cap Game)

This game presents the campers with the issue of whether animals are specialists or generalists in their diet. Use differently colored milk jug lids as the food resources for this game. You can ask friends to save lids for you, or make friends with someone who works for the local dairy. Assign a color to each of the campers and have them count out twenty caps of a particular color. Now, have someone distribute the caps in a grassy area, particularly in a loop if you can find such a place in your camp. While someone is spreading the caps around, assign a color or multiple colors to the campers. These colors are the allowable food resources that the campers can find for the upcoming round of the game. For instance, one camper might be assigned white, but another camper can gather any color cap.

Announce that the campers must find ten caps of their assigned color(s) in order to survive. Note to the campers that they are allowed to gather more than they need in any given round. Give the campers a "ready, set, go," to start the game.

After a minute or two, call the campers back in to you and ask if anyone did not find enough food caps to survive. Most of the campers who did not survive will be those who were assigned only one color, particularly one that was especially rare to begin with. Repeat the game for another round or two, reassigning colors each time so that no camper has a hard time in each round.

In the last round, say that a piece of the habitat which provides the food has just been destroyed. Therefore, some of the milk caps will need to be removed, before the next round. Remove twenty or more lids and play again. In this round, the specialists will have an even more difficult time. Specialists will be hurt more than generalists will be by the loss of habitat.

Debrief the activity by asking who had an easier time surviving, animals who could eat lots of things or only one item. Explain that specialists are therefore much more prone to decline when humans remove habitat, because their diet can not shift to other food sources. Ask for examples, such as pandas, snail kites, and so on. Inevitably, a camper or two will return with pocket full of food while there are still some animals starving. Use that instance as an opportunity to talk about hunger and how the greed of some humans prevents others' from having enough to eat. You might also observe some sharing in this game. Bring notice to that sharing during this time and emphasize that God's will is to have humans share resources so that all have a fair amount