Pollination game
About the game
Children get ready to play the pollination game
The pollination game helps children connect with nature through play. The children become bees and experience what happens when they must compete for diminishing food supplies, or risk being poisoned. After playing the game, the children reflect on their learning and decide what they can do to help look after the bees and bugs in their environment.
The game was adapted from an activity originally developed by the Field Studies Council at Epping Forest Field Centre, UK.
Aim
To show in a fun and active way the importance of flowering plants for bees.
Learning outcomes
- Students will learn how flowers are pollinated and what happens when bees have to work harder and travel further to find nectar.
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of ways people can affect bees, and what they can do to help look after their local bee and insect populations.
Links to the curriculum
Bee on flower
- Science: Living world: Ecology
- Social sciences: Place and environment
Curriculum levels
Time needed
- 5 minutes to set up
- 15 minutes to play
Prior knowledge needed by students
How plants are pollinated, and the vital role of bees.
Location
Use a flat outdoor area. It is recommended not to play the game indoors as water may get spilt on the floor and children may slip over and injure themselves.
Equipment
- Two cardboard box 'bee hives', each with an empty 500ml jar on top to collect 'nectar'.
- 15 jars or plastic cups, stuck onto coloured cardboard cut-out flowers.
- Two bottles of different coloured water eg red and yellow.
- A pipette or straw for each child taking part.
- Measuring jug.
Description of activity
Divide the area you plan to use into two equal-sized spaces (use lines on your sports field or netball court, or a long rope and posts to measure the space out).
Place a cardboard 'bee hive' with a jar on top at the end of each space to collect nectar.
Explain to the children that each space represents a different habitat:
- A 'bee-friendly' habitat with lots of flowering plants, where no artificial pesticides are used to control insect 'pests'.
- An 'improved' habitat with very few flowering plants, where artificial pesticides are used to control insect 'pests'.
Arrange cardboard flowers randomly in each habitat. Use fewer flowers spaced further apart in the 'improved' habitat, and more flowers placed closer together in the bee-friendly habitat.
Pour coloured water ('nectar') into the cardboard flower cups. Use different coloured water for the flowers in each habitat.
Now go!
Divide the group into two evenly sized teams, each with its own bee hive. Ask each team to line up along one end of their habitat.
Explain that their task is to work together as a community to collect nectar from the flowers in their habitat, using pipettes or straws (the equivalent of a bee's proboscis - the tube bees use to suck up nectar from the inside of flowers).
Each team is to visit all the flowers in their habitat only, using their straw or pipette to suck up the coloured water, or 'nectar' from the flowers and returning to the hive to deposit it into the jar. (Explain that the two habitats are too far apart for bees to travel between).
Keep the game going until the bees from the 'improved' habitat have collected all of their nectar and can no longer find any food.
Leave the game going a little longer so the 'improved habitat' team can see that the other team are still able to collect nectar and keep going. Once they start saying 'that's not fair', stop the game.
Measure the amount of 'nectar' collected in each 'hive'. See who has been able to collect more. (It should be the team representing the bee-friendly habitat). Discuss what happened and why.
Further discussion
- Why do bees need nectar?
- What can happen when bees have to travel further to find nectar? Or if the flowers they visit have been sprayed?
- What can we do to help look after them?
- List the different kinds of honey made from nectar from New Zealand native plants. Why is our beekeeping industry so important?
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