The Iron Seal

Creation for Kids in Church Camps

Seals face many obstacles to their survival, including nets, sharks, poisoned food, poachers, among others. This game helps campers to learn about those challenges as they make their way through this obstacle course. You will need a styrofoam baseball bat, a few tennis balls, 20 golf balls (4 of them distinguishable to you but not to the seals as poison), and 2 hula hoops for this game.

Start all of the seals as pups at one end of the pool, beginning on the deck. Explain that when you give the go signal, the campers must move into the pool on all fours before the fur poacher hits them with the styrofoam baseball bat. They must then swim through a hula hoop, representing a fishing net, without touching the hoop. Net, the seals continue to the opposite shore of the pool, where they avoid a shark that can tag them with tennis balls. Finally, the seals must swim back to the first side of the pool and retrieve a golf ball from the bottom. If the seals are tagged by the poacher, entangled in the net, tagged by the shark, or poisoned by their food, they must start over through the obstacle course.

Discuss the various challenges at the end of the game, with particular emphasis on how many of them are caused by humans. Ask the campers how they might try to solve some of the problems that the seals face.

This basic idea of an obstacle course explaining the challenges that particular species face can be changed in any number of ways to talk about birds, salmon, salamanders, or any other species. Adapt this game to fit your particular environment and its organisms.