Gone Fishin’ – Student Handout

by Irene Salter

Archway School

1940 Virginia St.

Berkeley, CA 94709

510-637-8433 (cell)

Summary

The management of the world’s fisheries is a controversial current issue that involves individuals from many different viewpoints – fishermen and women, environmentalists, park rangers, politicians, and shoppers at the seafood counter. The issue is that many of the world’s fisheries are overfished and have collapsed or are on the verge of collapse. This is but one example of the tragedy of the commons – where a limited common resource is overused because each individual person thinks, “If I don’t use this resource first, then somebody else will.” Students in this activity act as fishermen and women who need to share an ocean of fish and take in a catch. Groups soon realize that if they don’t set fishing limits and monitor the fish population, soon there are no fish left in the ocean.

Objectives

Can define population.

Can graph changes in a population over time.

Can see how available resources determine the number and type of organisms that an environment can support.

Can see how humans impact natural resources.

Can identify common natural resources that humans impact.

Can devise strategies to manage natural resources.

Vocabulary

Fishery

Overfishing

Collapse

Tragedy of the commons

Sustainability

Resource management

Gone Fishin’

Number of Fish Remaining

Year 1 / Year 2 / Year 3 / Year 4
Goldfish
M&Ms
Peanuts
Peanut M&Ms

My Catch

# Value / # Value / # Value / # Value
Goldfish ($3)
M&Ms ($5)
Peanuts ($5)
Peanut M&Ms ($10)

Other Fisher-people’s Income

Names / Income Year 1 / Income Year 2 / Income Year 3 / Income Year 4
My Total Income
Ocean Total Income

1) Below, graph the number of fish of each species over the 4 fishing seasons.

2) Describe how the fish population changes over the 4 fishing seasons.

3) Did your fishing group talk about the strategy that would be taken during each harvest? What strategies did you discuss? What strategies did you choose?

4) Compared to other groups, was your group successful in preventing the collapse of your fishery? Why or why not?

5) From a mathematical standpoint, which strategy for harvesting fish (or other common resource) is the best?

6) Why do you think there are rules about hunting and fishing? From your point of view, what should be the goal of these regulations?

A MyScienceBox Lesson Plan by Irene Salter ( This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License. To view a copy of this license, visit or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA.