Fishing Your Way to a Sustainable Future

Today’s ObjectiveDevelop a sustainable fishing strategy

for your fishing community.

Fishing for Sustainability!This activity is a model that will help us

demonstrate what happens when people share a common resource.

As you work, think about What are the consequences of your actions? What’s going on with your fellow fisherman?How is your fish population doing? What’s going on in Blue Lake?

Fishing: The Rules of the Game! Don’t eat your fish… yuck!Your Chopsticks are your fishing pole, no

fingers!Once you catch a fish it must be placed in

your cup in order to count.No stabbing or crushing the fish, think about

sale-ability of your fish once they are caught!Regular gold fish are worth $1, Rainbow gold

fish are worth $2.

Take some time to practice your fishing technique!

Game A: DirectionsPlace 25 regular goldfish and 5 rainbow goldfish in Blue

Lake!Your fishing limit is determined by your character card,

share your fishing limit with your group.You have 15 seconds for each round, each game has four

rounds. You can catch as many fish as your limit allows If you don’t catch at least two fish, you are done fishing for

that game!You earn $0 for the first two fish, $1 for each additional

regular goldfish and $2 for each additional rainbow fish.Fish that aren’t caught reproduce. During any round, you may receive an incident card.

GAME A: DebriefAt the conclusion of the 4th round…

How did your fishing limit affect your behavior?

How did your fishing limit affect Blue Lake?How did each fisherman do financially?What is the condition of your fishing

community?What is the condition of Blue Lake? Is this

fishing practice sustainable?

GAME B and CAll the rules stay the same except the

Character Cards change.Start with 25 regular gold fish and 5 rainbow

fish in Blue LakeEach game has 4 rounds, 15 seconds each.

GAME B and C: DebriefHow did your fishing limit affect your behavior?How did your fishing limit affect Blue Lake?How did each fisherman do financially?What is the condition of your fishing community?What is the condition of Blue Lake? Is this fishing

practice sustainable?

Take a Break!What is the Shared Resource here?

How well is your group sharing this common resource?

Are you being selfish or working for the good of the whole group?

Discuss how the fishing is going and if you might use any strategies to increase or decrease the number of fish you’re catching.

GAME DYour group will create revised fishing limits

that you think will maintain healthy populations in Blue Lake.What are your indicators that Blue Lake’s

fishery is continuing to survive?Are there any trade-offs that you will need to

make?Play four rounds using your new fishing

limits; keep all other rules the same.Don’t forget to record your data!

GAME D - DebriefDid your new fishing limits change the results

of the game?What is the condition of the fishing

community? Did each person catch enough fish to survive? Did each person make money?

What is the condition of Blue Lake? Are there fish left?Is this fishing practice sustainable?

Tragedy of the CommonsWhat is a tragedy?

A great lossWhat is a commons?

The shared resource

Where there any Tragedies in your games?

How could your group avoid the Tragedy in Game D?

SustainableWas your Fishing Community Sustainable? Why or why not?

Sustainability is the capacity to support or maintain long term.

For a system to be sustainable; it should beSocially ‘fairness’;Economically viable;

andEnvironmentally

renewable to all of our natural resources.

Turn in for a Class Assignment Grade…Your completed data recording sheet.Written answers to three questions…

1. Did your fishing community experience a Tragedy of the Commons? If so, what was it?

2. What does it mean to be sustainable?3. Was your fishing community sustainable?

Explain how you know.