Yellowstone Eco-Simulator

The challange

Maintaining a balance so that all living things involved survive is difficult. We, as humans, often are involved in destructive ways such as hunting, arson (starting fires, accidentally or on purpose), or polluting streams, rivers, or other wildlife areas. Even when we try to help out, such as by reintroducing species, such as a wolf, we cause a change in the delicate balance, although we hope for the better.

You can experience just how difficult it is to keep this balance of creatures by experimenting with the Yellowstone Eco-Simulator. A simulation is a working model of a process, such as the balance between plant life, elk, and wolves in Yellowstone National Park.

Can you set up the simulation with the proper number of wolves and elk to allow it to run as long as possible?

Rules of the game

Here are a few rules that you should keep in mind:

• The elk ( ) eat the grass ( -- eaten grass looks like ).
• The wolves ( ) eat the elk. Wolves have a better chance of eating an elk if the elk is sick ( ) or if the wolves are in a pack together.
• Occasionally, a wolf or an elk will give birth to a new wolf or elk. In addition, wolves and elk can die of old age or hunger.
• Dead wolves and elk help to feed the plant life so that the whole process can continue.

Setting up the simulation

• The simulation is preset with some wolves and elk. Watch it by clicking on . You can stop the simulation by clicking on . What eventually happens if you let the simulation run for a long time?
• You can reset the simulation to the original number of animals by clicking on .
• When the simulation is stopped, you can add animals by clicking on the on the left-hand side of the simulation, clicking on the picture of the animal you want above the simulation, and then clicking in the simulation where you want to place the animal. You can remove animals by first clicking on and then clicking on the animal you want to remove.
• Now it's your turn: try out the simulation with different numbers of animals. What happens if there is a large number of wolves and a small number of elk? What happens if there is a large number of elk and a small number wolves? What happens if there is a large number of both, or a small number of both? Feel free to experiment as much as you want.