Did you know that the disruption of one simple species—such as aquatic insects—can disrupt an entire food web? This aquatic food web game depicts the necessity of all living organisms in the St. Lawrence River – from algae to great blue herons. Students will each be assigned a specific organism – bluegill, smallmouth bass, duck, frog, aquatic plants, and turtles to name a few.  Each organism comes with a game tag that tells the kid what other organisms their organism eats and what eats it. Using yarn participants will become connected to each other based on their position in the food web. Once the web is complete, certain organisms will drop out to show that there is a ripple effect of organisms leaving the food web as a result of pollution, overfishing, or loss of food sources.

This game can be played on its own, but works especially well when paired with an aquatic macroinvertebrate hunt in which students have the opportunity to close examine algae, aquatic insects, amphibians, and other organisms on the low end of the food chain.