National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 1

APPENDIX B: Student Pages

ACTIVITY I: Are These Resources Renewable?

ACTIVITY II: Fish Banks Briefing – Instructions and Questions 

DEBRIEFING FISH BANKS

ACTIVITY III: Debriefing Fish Banks – Student Insights

ACTIVITY IV: Debriefing Fish Banks – Analyzing the Data

ACTIVITY V: Debriefing Fish Banks – Limiting Factors

ACTIVITY VI: Debriefing Fish Banks – Stakeholder Beliefs and Values

ACTIVITY VII: Tragedy of the Commons

EXTENSION: Comparing Both Sides of the Issue – The Lorax and Truax
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 2

ACTIVITY I: Are These Resources Renewable?

STUDENT PAGE

In the space provided, please indicate whether the resource listed is renewable or 

nonrenewable.

Renewable Non-Renewable

Bobwhite Quail

Oak Tree

Rockfish

Coal

Soil

Uranium

Blue Crab

Water

Natural Gas

Gasoline

Canada Goose

Menhaden

Water

Wind & Solar Energy

Eastern Oyster

Copper
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 3

ACTIVITY I: Are These Resources Renewable?

STUDENT PAGE

1. Complete, Are These Resources Renewable, Student Page.

2. Answer the following questions:

a. What do the terms renewable and nonrenewable resources mean? 

b. What does the term sustainable mean?

c. How does sustainability apply to both renewable and nonrenewable resources? Can 

both be managed sustainably? How?

d. How are the resources that are listed in the exercise used by humans? 
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 4

ACTIVITY II: Fish Banks Briefing

Instructions and Questions

STUDENT PAGE

1. You will be participating in a group computer simulation that illustrates the complex 

interactions and overlap of systems. In this particular case, we are looking at the 

interactions between environmental, social, and economic systems.

2. With your Team/Company, review your Role Description and Briefing/Introduction (Video, 

PowerPoint, or PDF). Here you will learn about the goals of the game and the steps of play. 

3. You will be assigned a number for your company. Create a company name and logo, and 

post it where the class can see it.

4. Develop (draw) a city of where your company is located on paper provided by your teacher. 

This doesn’t need to be completed right away. You can work on this throughout the game.

5. Depending on the version of the simulation used the procedure will either require that you 

enter your fishing decisions on a paper form or online. Your teacher will let you know which 

version you’ll be using and provide you with detailed instructions. 

SUMMARY OF TEAM ROLES 

 Team Roles

 Team Goals

 Financial Information – income and costs 

 Fishing Fleet 

 Catch and Ship Effectiveness 

 Fishing Areas 

 Fish Population 

 Regeneration 

SUMMARY OF STEPS OF PLAY

A. Fish Banks Game Board

 Record data from computer printout 

 Collect ships and money 

 Bid for auctioned ships 

 Buy or sell ships in trading session 
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 5

 Place orders for new ship construction 

 Calculate and record fleet size 

 Allocate ships among fishing areas and harbor, and record on the decision sheet 

 Place ships on the game board 

 Give decision sheet to the computer operator 

 Develop your company strategy for maximizing your assets

B. Fish Banks Online Simulation

 Initial fishing company data is available online in the game simulation; students 

enter their decisions into the computer, rather than on a paper decision sheet. 

 Bid for auctioned ships – live or Web-based 

 Buy or sell ships in trading session 

 Place orders for new ship construction 

 Allocate ships among fishing areas and harbor 

 Update decisions 

 Develop your company strategy for maximizing your assets
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 6

DEBRIEFING

STUDENT PAGE

ACTIVITY III: Debriefing Fish Banks – Student Insights

Discuss your experience playing the game by answering the following questions. 

1. How did the employees in your company work together? Did everyone on your team have 

an active role? 

2. Was there collaboration among companies developed over time, or was the game driven by 

competition?

3. Did you notice declines in the catch over time? If so, did you negotiate with other 

companies to regulate the harvest at that time? 

4. How did weather affect your catch each year?

5. If the goal of the game was to maximize your assets, did you consider how the fishery was 

an important component of the system? 
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 7

6. Discuss your company’s strategies while playing the game for years 3, 6, and 9. 

a. How did your strategies/decisions affect the fish populations?

Year 3:

Year 6:

Year 9:

b. Did strategies change when, or if you noticed a decline in the fishery? Why?

c. Did other companies have similar or different strategies? Did one strategy seem 

more effective than another? Explain.

7. How did your personal beliefs and values compare to that of the team as a whole during the 

game? Was there any internal struggle for you personally? 

8. Did any of the companies “win” the game? Why or why not? 
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 8

DEBRIEFING 

STUDENT PAGE

ACTIVITY IV: Debriefing Fish Banks – Analyzing the Data

1. Watch the Debriefing video or PowerPoint presentation. 

2. Fishing Companies should share the total asset data they accrued during each fishing 

season. Using the data recorded from the game, create a table that includes the following 

information:

a. Fishing season (e.g., 1-10)

b. Company name and number 

c. Total number of ships fishing each season

d. Value of total assets (i.e., sum of money made from catch and salvage value of ships)

3. Graph the number of ships and total assets for each company for each fishing season.

4. Graph the expansion of the fleet, catch over time, and recruitment using indexes provided 

by your teacher. 

5. Explain how these factors affected one another in the system.

a. How did the number of ships in the fleet affect the catch?

b. How did the catch affect recruitment?

c. During what fishing season did the population begin to decline?

6. Were there actions that could have been taken to address population declines?
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 9

DEBRIEFING 

STUDENT PAGE

ACTIVITY V: Debriefing Fish Banks – Limiting Factors

The maximum population size of a species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the 

food, water, and other habitat requirements available, is called carrying capacity. We will discuss 

the factors in the game that affected the carrying capacity of the fish in both the deep sea and 

coastal populations.

Graphs from the Debriefing video or presentation show different types of population growth that 

can occur in a system. Limiting Factors determine the carrying capacity of the environment for a 

species.

1. In a class discussion, identify the following:

a. Identify underlying causes of behavior and limiting factors that contributed to the decline in 

the fishery.

b. Identify other limiting factors that may not have been included in the Fish Banks simulation, 

but affect the fishery in a natural system. 

c. Use the diagram on the following page to label the Limiting Factors. Identify both dependent 

and independent variables.
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 10

Population 

Size

LIMITING FACTORS – STUDENT PAGE

Graphs from the Debriefing video or presentation show different types of population growth that can 

occur in a system. Limiting Factors determine the carrying capacity of an environment for a species. 

Label the limiting factors that could apply to fish in a system. Consider your experience in the Fish Banks 

simulation.

Population size can be limited by

DENSITY DEPENDENT 

VARIABLES INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 11

DEBRIEFING

STUDENT PAGE

ACTIVITY VI: Debriefing Fish Banks – Stakeholder Beliefs and Values

1. How did stakeholders, beliefs, and values play into the game, and how did it affect the 

decisions your team made? (How did your beliefs and values as a fishing company compare 

to articles you have read regarding the oyster industry, and the beliefs and values held by 

actual stakeholders involved with the issue?)

2. As a group, brainstorm a list of ideas that would result in changing the adverse aspects of 

game behavior. 

3. How would these solutions be applied in real systems? 

4. From what you have learned with regard to stakeholders, and their beliefs and values thus 

far, what are the difficulties in developing and implementing these solutions?

5. Determine the extent to which the same problems and events also occur in the real system 

by comparing the simulation to the management of the Eastern oyster in Chesapeake Bay.

6. Decide what limiting factors in the game were responsible for those problems. Are these 

same factors also present in real systems?

7. Indicate the corresponding changes that could be made in real systems.

8. What actions would you take to gain commitment and cooperation from other fishing 

companies in the simulation to change the outcome? Could negotiations involve other 

stakeholder groups? What would be their role?

9. Identify possible solutions to reversing the declining trend of oysters, or other fisheries in 

the Chesapeake Bay.
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 12

10. Read Oyster Restoration Debate Rages on in Maryland in the Bay Journal, 

http://www.bayjournal.com/article/oyster_restoration_debate_rages_on_in_maryland. 

Matt Pluta, the Choptank Riverkeeper, spoke in favor of continuing oyster restoration in 

the Tred Avon River. Construction had been suspended in Fall 2015 after watermen 

argued that sanctuaries were failing to meet intended goals of restoration. See Corps 

Shifts Funds for Halted Maryland Oyster Project to Virginia, 

http://www.bayjournal.com/article/corps_agrees_to_delay_md_oyster_restoration_wa

rns_of_funding_risk. 

Pluta stated, “Short-term economic gains should not overshadow long-term ecological 

benefits, which we are trying to achieve here.” 

How would this statement apply to the Fish Banks simulation?

11. Watch “What Happened to the Grand Banks Cod?” (YouTube Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5wR8Iu2Q00

How does this behavior compare to behavior with current fisheries management problems?

http://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/7662/urlt/0071787-limitsyourspecies.pdf
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 13

DEBRIEFING 

STUDENT PAGE

ACTIVITY VII: Fish Banks Debriefing – Tragedy of the Commons

1. The Tragedy of the Commons, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243.full, by 

Garrett Hardin was published in the Journal, Science, in 1968. Hardin discusses how a 

Commons will ultimately fail if all of those using the commons do not recognize their

combined effects on the resource and the overall system, or on the integration of 

systems. Read The Tragedy of the Commons.

a. Write an essay comparing The Tragedy of the Commons to oyster management during 

the Oyster Wars, (see Module 1: An Historical Perspective of Oyster-Related 

Environmental Issues – The Oyster Wars of Chesapeake Bay), OR

b. Take a position, and argue your position in class with your peers based on evidence 

from the articles and the Fish Banks simulation.
 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noaa.gov 14

EXTENSION

STUDENT PAGE

EXTENSION: Debriefing Fish Banks – Comparing Both Sides of the Issue – The 

Lorax and Truax

Evaluate both sides of an issue related to sustainable resource management.

1. Read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, or watch The Lorax,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSSrYnc1yQs, as a class on YouTube.

a. Write an essay that compares the environmental issue in the book to that of the game 

played today; or, compare The Lorax to the Eastern oyster.

b. Using the Causal Loop Diagram from the Debriefing, develop a causal loop depicting the 

behavior observed in The Lorax. (See the Systems Thinking manuals and resources from 

either Fish Banks game version for the diagram). 

c. Read Truax, http://woodfloors.org/truax.pdf, the National Wood Flooring Association’s 

response to The Lorax. Compare the beliefs and values in both stories.

d. What were the events, problems, and issues?

e. Who were the stakeholders, and what were their beliefs and values.

f. How does considering “both sides of an issue” help you make an informed decision 

about how to solve an environmental problem?

g. Write your own children’s story about over-harvesting of a resource that you value.

2. Read, Rosenberg, et al (5 November 1993). Achieving Sustainable Use of Renewable 

Resources, Science, Volume 262, pp. 828-829.

http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/data/sust/pdf/262-5135-828.pdf

If sustainability is the goal of renewable resource management, what management 

practices were suggested in this reading, and how does it compare to current Chesapeake 

Bay oyster restoration related issues?