Teaching Science

ecology

Food Forest Card Game

Food Forest is a unique, fun deck of cards that can be used to play games based on natural, organic gardening. Food Forest games help adults and children understand how plants interact - both in a garden and in the wild. Players learn about companion planting, the layers of a forest, beneficial insects, and principles of permanent agriculture, or Permaculture.

This deck comes with instructions for two games that can be played with the cards. More games can be found online, and you can even design your own! This deck is also an inspiring tool for designing your own food forest.

This is an excellent fit for the ecology unit. Although the plants are those found in New England, that’s similar enough to Ontario for many of our students — and there are blank cards so you can add local plants if you want.

The game is available in both hard copy and print-and-play versions.

Linked in the grade 9 biology page.

PhyloBoreal Card Game

PhyloBoreal is an ecosystem card game about the boreal forest. Players use their cards to build and cause disturbances to a communal food web. The winner is the player who gains the most species points by creating a stable and diverse food web.

PhyloBoreal is a customized version of a card game called Phylo developed at the University of British Columbia. PhyloBoreal was designed by yours truly, Elly and Jonathan, because we think the boreal forest is a landscape of incredible beauty, importance, and diversity. We hope you will too!

The price of this game covers only the cost required to produce each deck—no profit is made. Please consider donating, or at least signing the petition at Boreal Birds Need Half [
www.borealbirds.org] to help protect the boreal forest!

The artwork on these cards is top-notch, and as much of Ontario is covered by boreal forest this game could easily find a place in the ecology unit.

The special action cards in PhyoBoreal include stewardship as well as exploitation, adding a political dimension to the game. Can you use Legislation to counter a Pipeline or Road? Play the game and see how it works out!

Linked in the grade 9 biology page.

Pterosaurs: The Card Game

Not birds! Not even dinosaurs! Pterosaurs were flying reptiles, and the first and largest vertebrates to fly under their own power.

Challenge your friends to this pterosaurs card game. Along the way, explore animals and plants that lived during the Mesozoic Era.

Pterosaurs: The Card Game uses images and information from the vast collections of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, especially the 2014 special exhibition Pterosaurs: Flight in the Age of Dinosaurs (amnh.org/pterosaurs). The game was co-designed with teenagers in the Museum’s #scienceFTW program and with game designer Nick Fortugno, based on an existing biodiversity card game, Phylo (phylogame.org).

A pre-built Phylo deck with excellent production values.

Linked in the grade 11 biology page.