Materials Included In Kit

Additional Materials Required

Prelab Preparation

1. Start your preparation by reading the true story of Easter Island. The main idea of this simulation activity is to recreate the “feeling” of what happened on Easter Island. Therefore, never lose sight of the fact that you want to move the simulation along so that all the trees are depleted and everyone dies!
2. Read all of the enclosed material before using this simulation in the classroom. Read the Student Instructions first, even before continuing with this page. Then continue reading these Teacher’s Notes and envision conducting the simulation with your teaching style. You must incorporate your style into the simulation since not every “rule” and “maneuver” of the simulation is spelled out. You will need to be flexible during the simulation and change the “rules” that you judge appropriate. (See suggestion for the “gods” later.) During the simulation never lose sight of the goal (to get rid of the trees and cause the tribes to perish!).
3. Prepare the Island Element Cards by cutting along the dotted lines on the three Island Element Card Sheets. There are enough cards (six each) to set up three islands with two tribes on each island. For a class of thirty, this would place two tribes of 5 each at each of three islands. Decide what numbers work best for your class size and physical setup. With smaller classes you should opt for fewer islands. (Remember the goal—more people are needed to harvest more trees.)
4. Copy the Student Instructions for each tribe.
5. Using the following diagram as a guide, use masking tape to mark off and label a sheet of butcher paper so that two tribes (4–5 students each) are facing each other and able to share the forest of popsicle sticks. Tape the Element Cards inside their appropriate marked-off areas. Optional: Make two copies of the conversion charts and tape them to the butcher paper.

6. Place 210 popsicle sticks into each of three cups. Place the remaining sticks into the fourth cup that you will use to replenish trees during the activity.
7. Create a list of review questions for the simulation. The list should contain at least fifty easy questions. The questions you use should reflect the curriculum area being taught at the time. Choose review questions you may already be using for other purposes.

Students will answer the questions in sets of five and formulate answers as a tribe. They should be able to answer the questions easily in order to harvest the trees. Do not make the questions too difficult. Whether you use fill in the blank, true/false or short answer questions is up to you. You will have to be able to correct the answers fairly quickly. Provide the entire list of questions at once and let students select the questions they wish to answer on a separate sheet of paper. Giving the entire list to choose from all at once will increase the chances of success. Having students write their answers on a separate sheet of paper will allow you to reuse the question sheets with other classes. Questions might be like the following:

A producer–consumer relationship is illustrated by __________.
Plant-eating animals are known as __________.
In exponential population growth, describe the growth rate.
Give an example of a food chain.
What does autotrophic mean?
How does nitrogen get into the soil?
List four things needed for a habitat.

Disposal

All materials from the simulation can be reused many times.

Lab Hints

1. Organize furniture around the islands and divide students into tribes.
2. Place the 210 popsicle sticks into the forest area.
3. Instruct students to read the Student’s Instruction Sheet. Do not feel obligated to answer every question they might have. A certain amount of initial confusion is appropriate for a newly inhabited island.
4. Monitor the tribes and correct their written answers. Have students answer the questions as a tribe. Students should harvest three sticks from the forest area for each correct answer. (So for each round of questions a tribe can harvest a total of 15 sticks.) Remind students that it is a tribe effort to answer the questions, determine the development of their part of the island and allocate the sticks.
5. After about 10–15 minutes (so that each tribe has had enough time to answer about four rounds of questions—a maximum of 60 sticks) interrupt the simulation and indicate that it is the end of the first year. At this point each tribe needs the items listed for the first year. The criteria at each yearly break are as follows:

1. If the tribe has all the necessary items, they double their population. (Add the appropriate number of population chips to the tribe.)
2. If the tribe has more than half the categories of the necessary items, they add two population chips (children) to their tribe.
3. If the tribe has less than half the necessary items, they remove one population chip (person) from the tribe.

6. At the end of each year, read the current situation of the island to the students. If the island situation involves some disaster that requires adjustments, make these adjustments before the next round of questions begins.
7. The breakdown of each year’s needs and situations are summarized:

Year 1

Needs

1 garden per tribe member
2 canoes for fishing
1 house
Clothes for each tribe member
6 trees for firewood

Situation: A big rainstorm causes the loss of 1 canoe and all the gardens. (Remove the appropriate number of sticks from each element area and place them back into the cup.) Warning: Statues must be constructed to please the gods so that rainstorms will not come again.

Year 2

Needs

1 garden per tribe member
3 canoes for fishing
1 house
2 statues
Clothes for each tribe member
12 trees for firewood

Situation: The chicken supply has decreased which creates a need to catch more fish. Two of your canoes have been broken due to wear and tear. (Remove the appropriate number of sticks from each element area and place them into the cup.) More statues are needed to please the gods.

Year 3

Needs

1 garden per tribe member
5 canoes for fishing
2 houses
4 statues
Clothes for each tribe member
24 trees for firewood

Situation: The soil nutrients have been depleted by gardening, more gardens will be needed by next year for each tribe member. The birds have died because of a lack of tree nesting sites. There are, in turn, fewer trees due to the lack of pollination by the birds. The wise elders in your tribe predict great storms ahead and are calling for the construction of numerous statues to please the gods.

Year 4

Needs

2 gardens per tribe member
6 canoes for fishing
3 houses
6 statues
Clothes for each tribe member
30 trees for firewood

Situation: A monsoon hits and destroys your houses and gardens. (Remove the appropriate number of sticks from each element area and place them into the cup.) You need to rebuild as quickly as possible.

8. After Year 1 is over, have students resume the question-and-answer activity. As you walk around to check additional answers before Year 2 ends, place a FEW sticks into each forest. Do not dwell on this act but if asked explain that some new trees are growing (but very minimal compared to use). Occasionally point out which tribes are getting the biggest (as if this were a good thing!).
9. Monitor the progress of the tribes deciding when another year has passed. Only inform students of their needs after each subsequent year ends. Students will, of course, complain that they did not know the goals like they did for Year 1 (just like in real life).
10. As the forest is depleted, students will want additional trees for the growing population. Explain that trees grow slowly. Some tribes might start robbing other tribes! (Unfortunately, just like in real life.)
11. The tribes will likely deplete the forest between Year 3 and Year 4 (some sooner). Use your judgment as to when the simulation should stop. Do not let the simulation drag beyond the point when it is obvious that the tribes are on a collision course with resources.
12. Optional: If things are not moving as quickly as you like for the class time that you have, you can invoke your teacher’s prerogative to play the island’s gods. You might try these scenarios, if necessary:

Positive: The gods have blessed your tribe with a bountiful year. Harvest more trees—4, 8, etc.

Negative: A terrible tsunami struck the island and all of the canoes were demolished or lost at sea. Do the same for houses, clothes, etc.

13. It is critical to read and discuss the real Easter Island story as a wrap-up of the simulation. You can organize the reading as appropriate for your class. Depending upon the time situation, the reading can be completed as homework or in class on a second day of the simulation. If you have long class periods, you can read the article immediately. Your summary discussion might include some of the following topics/questions:

1. What was your main problem(s) on Survival Island?
2. What was the main problem on the real Easter Island?
3. Could the problems on Easter Island have been prevented?
4. Are there any similarities between Survival Island and Easter Island? What about the Earth and Easter Island?
5. What resources might the Earth run out of first? How can we prevent this?

14. All materials from the simulation can be reused many times.

Teacher Handouts

10352_Teacher1.pdf

References

A special thank you to RevaBeth Russell, Lehi High School, Lehi, UT, for providing this activity.

Background

Easter Island in the Classroom

Easter Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean. It is 2,000 miles west of Chile and 1,300 miles from the nearest inhabitable island. It has a mild, tropical climate. Europeans discovered the island on Easter Day in 1722 thus the name Easter Island.

At the time of its discovery in 1722, there were 2,000–3,000 people living on Easter Island, but there were no trees and no bushes taller than 10 feet high. There were only 47 species of plants. There were no native animals larger than insects, not a bird or bat, snail or lizard. The islanders did, however, have domesticated chickens. When the Europeans came, the islanders did not have any sea-worthy vessels. Not a single canoe or raft nor any fishing boats to harvest any food from the ocean.

It is estimated that the island was settled by people in about 700–800 CE. Statues were probably constructed somewhere between 1400 to 1600—around the time of the middle ages. There are no indications that anyone moved onto or off of the island during that time. There was also no evidence of trading with any other island. The inhabitants knew of no other people; they felt they were the only people on Earth. The population on the island, at its peak, is estimated to have been between 9,000 and 15,000 people. Eight hundred eighty-seven stone statues called moai were cut from volcanic rock in various sizes. The largest erected moai, named Paro, is about 33 feet tall and weighs 82 tons. Two hundred eighty-eight statues were successfully moved and placed upright—many more than six miles from where they were cut out of volcanic material. The remaining moai are in various stages of completion, either at the quarry or down the road from the others. Many of the moai rest on platforms called anu that are usually four feet high. The early Europeans wondered how these massive stones could have been moved such immense distances in an area that had no heavy thick timber to roll them on and no plant material for making strong ropes. Questions abounded. How were the statues transported and erected? What happened to all the people that had to have lived there to apply power for such an effort?

There has been a lot of speculation about the origins of the early inhabitants, and research has uncovered a lot of answers. Using pollen counts, archeology and paleontology, we now know that this island had been a subtropical forest yielding abundant food, reeds and trees including an extinct species of large palm trees. Fish and porpoises in the ocean provided abundant food and tools.

This prospering, civilized and well-governed society crumbled at the same time as the forests disappeared. One hypothesis links the society’s doom to the clearing of the forest for homes, gardens, canoes, fuel and as a means to transport the moai. Rats and chickens that inhabited the island ate the tree seeds so few new trees grew to replace the cut ones. Native birds that pollinated the trees and shrubs died from loss of habitat and food. Every native bird became extinct. As the number of trees diminished, the people could not build canoes to fish so food from the ocean could not be harvested.

Archeologists have determined that the islanders began to rely on domesticated chickens and rats as food. Fish bones become scarcer in the archeological digs while rat and chicken bones became more common in the garbage heaps. Since there was no wood to cook the meat, islanders used reeds and grasses to fuel their fires, hastening the ecological destruction of the island ecosystem. Without forests to hold the rain and groundwater, the climate became more desert-like and the fertile topsoil eroded away. Competition for resources let to war and more devastation.

Here was an island where people found fertile soil, a comfortable climate, abundant food and ample building material. They prospered and multiplied. As the years passed, the people started building stone statues for religious purposes. Rival clans hurried to display statues to increase their prestige, including pulling other clans’ moais down. Eventually, the inhabitants of Easter Island were cutting down the forest faster than it could replenish itself. As the forest disappeared, the people lacked the wood for fuel, canoes, houses and, of course, statues. Life became more uncomfortable as springs and streams dried up because there were no trees or watersheds. People became increasingly hungry as vegetation disappeared. They fished and hunted more and more—and obtained less and less. Low crop yields also meant doom because the soil was more easily eroded by wind and water when the vegetation and roots were gone. Later moais show sunken cheeks and visible ribs, suggesting that people were starving. Chaos replaced a once complex, smooth-running society.

The disaster probably happened not with a bang, but with a whimper, slowly, over decades. Perhaps war or disease interrupted work. The changes may have been hard to detect. If older people had told stories of their youth, would the young people have understood? Gradually trees became fewer, smaller and less important. From the highest point on the island, where the entire island could be seen, did anyone notice when the last tree was cut?

Experiment Overview

Your tribe is on a beautiful paradise island. You hope your tribe grows and prospers here. There is abundant
food on the land and in the ocean. The water is clean and there are plenty of trees to build canoes and
shelters. You need to provide shelter, clothing, and food for yourselves. The gods have been very favorable
helping your tribe find this island. You want to thank the gods by building statues. You hope that the gods
will continue to bless your people.

Procedure

Student Rules

1. You share the forest with another tribe. Name your tribe and make a name sign to place on your part of the island. Place one colored chip for every member of your tribe on your part of the island. One of the two island tribes should place the 210 trees (sticks) into the forest area of the island.
2. As a tribe, discuss the questions provided by your teacher and write the answers to five of the questions on a separate piece of paper. Raise your hand when you are ready to have your teacher check the answers.
3. For each correct answer, you may harvest three trees (sticks). Remove the correct number of trees from the forest.
4. As a tribe, determine how to use your trees. Place the trees at the correct location on your part of the island. Refer to the Conversion Chart in Figure 1 to determine how many trees are required for each item.

5. Answer five more questions and have the teacher check the answers. Remove the correct number of trees placing them as needed on each section of the island.
6. At a certain point, your teacher will inform you that a year on the island has passed. Your teacher will tell you what resources you need to have accumulated and built. This will determine whether your tribe is still alive and how well your tribe has done.

At the end of the first year your tribe will need at a minimum:

1 garden per tribe member
2 canoes (for fishing)
1 house for shelter
Clothes for each tribe member
6 trees for firewood

7. Continue writing your answers, having them corrected and building up your island until your teacher stops you for another year on the island.