- Split the players into three roughly equal groups and form three concentric circles:
- The outer circle are the flowers (standing)
- The middle circle are frogs (standing)
- The inner circle are insects (kneeling on one knee)
- On the leader’s signal, the first round starts, during which:
- Flowers stay still and wait to be tagged by an insect
- Insects run to tag a flower without being captured by a frog – they can avoid being captured by a frog by ‘flying’ to safety (touching one knee to the ground)
- Frogs try and catch insects before they reach the flowers – before following an insect they must turn 360° on the spot
- Each round lasts just 10 seconds. Tagged flowers become insects, captured insects become frogs. Unsuccessful insects or frogs become flowers for the next round.
Each round will create a change in the populations, and therefore in the dynamics of the game, e.g. if the frogs are too successful there are not enough insects for them to feed on them and the population will fall again.
Ask the players to describe the changes that they observed throughout the game – can they think of real-life examples of this?