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Description

The ocean is important to all life on earth. Oceans are an important source of food
for many people around the world and they are also home to as many as 2 million
different types of animals (species).

But the number of fish are not unlimited, so as humans we have to learn to manage
our ocean to make sure everyone has access to fish now and into the future.

Resources

Print outs- One boat per patrol/group, at least one fish per child (min. 20)
• Rewards (wrapped sweets add extra incentive)
• Coloured pencils
• A rope or line on the floor to separate the ocean from the shore

Instructions

Start this game with minimal discussion beforehand. For your benefit the idea of this game is to get the
girls to manage their ‘fishery’. Fisheries are typically managed through;
1. Quotas (limits to how many fish can be caught per season),
2. Equipment limits (eg. How many boats, types of nets),
3. Season limits (select times of year a species can be caught).

The kids are actually great at coming up with these basic principles themselves through;
1. Limits on how many fish can be picked up by each person/group
2. By how many people can per group/six can collect fish
3. By changing the amount of time they can ‘fish’ for etc.

As a leader you are there less to run the game, but rather to facilitate a discussion among the group.

Today we’re going to do go fishing! Has anyone ever gone fishing before?
For this game we first need to have one boat per group/six, and name our boat. (Give the girls as long or
as little as you want for this. They can decorate it too)
There are 3 instructions for this game
1. As a group/six you have to collect fish
2. Each round is called a year, and each year lasts 3 minutes
3. At the end of the year any fish left in the ocean will have baby fish. Each fish will have 2 babies.

Year 1
Place a rope/line on the floor. On one side is the ocean and on the other side is the coast where the boats are
based. Place all the fish out in the ocean, set a timer for 3 mins and let the girls start.
Do not give them any extra information and expect that the group will collect ALL of the fish.

At the end of the 3 minutes tell the group the good news that they get paid for their fish! That for every 5 fish
they’ve collected they can ‘sell’ them for a reward (This number can be modified as needed). All other fish cannot
be sold and will be ‘thrown out’.
You should get all of the fish back at the end to reuse for future rounds

Year 2
Announce the start of year 2.
If there are any fish left then add 2 babies for every fish. Assumedly there are none, but start to set it up with your
timer etc and wait for the girls to tell you that.
What will you do if there are no fish? Will you all go hungry? Why are there no fish left?
How about we start again?
Prompt a discussion about what rules they could put in place to make sure there are fish left at the end, reread the
instructions again if needed. E.g. They may decide to only collect one fish per person per boat.
Once the group has come to a consensus, place all the fish back in the sea and start the year.
They will likely only catch 5 fish- enough to get a reward.
At the end of the year (timer) tell them that the price of fish this year is 3 fish= 1 reward (or whatever you see fit),
and that all excess fish will be ‘thrown out’. This will cause outrage and maybe some swapping between groups.

Year 3
Announce the start of year 3. If there are any fish left then add 2 babies for every fish. If again there are none, do as
before and restart. Give them the opportunity to discuss their ‘rules’ for this year. They may want to modify their
rules based on their experience in year 2.
Continue this for up to 5 years, by which case they should have the hang of it and should be sustainably fishing.
Once you’ve finished the game get the whole group together and discuss how this game is kind of like real life
where there are only a limited number of fish in the sea. Discuss how the rules they made up in the group are
similar to rules used in the Irish fishing industry to make sure they don’t over fish.

Tags

• fish
• Life below water
• SDG
• SDG 14
• SDG 14 Life below Water
• sustainable development goals

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