Activity 6: Aquaculture Entrepreneurs

Learning Targets

  • Understand the importance of a business strategy and investing in business when competing with other businesses in an unpredictable market.
  • Help youth understand the real world application and associated value of aquaculture as a business endeavor.

Time to complete activity: 60+ minutes

(Youth may want to play multiple rounds of this game)

Background for facilitator

Note:  All links are provided purely for educational purposes. No responsibility is assumed for any content on the linked site(s).

Valued at over $52 million in 2008, the aquaculture industry is very important to the state of Maine. Because fishing can be profitable, it is also a competitive industry requiring investments to get started and to move up through the ranks. Four different and profitable creatures being cultured in Maine are the edible blue mussel, sugar kelp, the soft-shell clam, and the Atlantic salmon.

This activity is in a game format. Youth will explore business strategies and competition in this simulated aquaculture industry game. They will then compare their experiences as an aquaculture entrepreneur to what they have previously learned about aquaculture. It is recommended that you view the video instructions of the game prior to attempting to facilitate this activity.

Vocabulary

  • Aquaculture: the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of fish, shellfish, plants, algae, and other organisms in all types of water environments.
  • Entrepreneur: a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.

 Key concepts to address throughout this activity

  • Investing in your business is helpful in the long run.
  • Higher valued species may be worth more later but require a higher initial investment.
  • Markets can be unpredictable so sometimes an investment does not work out.

Materials (per group)

  • 1 Game Board
  • 1 Seal Piece “the sneaky seal”
  • 1 Six-sided die
  • Set of fishing vessel pieces
    • 7 of each color
  • 24 Chance cards
  • Aquaculture creatures
    • 50 Blue Mussel Tokens
    • 50 Sugar Kelp Tokens
    • 50 Soft-Shell Clam Tokens
    • 50 Salmon Tokens
    • 50 Net Tokens
  • 60 Fake 100 Dollar Bills
  • 4 “What’s it worth?” Keys
  • “Anatomy of a Turn” cards

Methods

  1. Prompt youth:
    1. Who here can tell me what an entrepreneur is?  a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.
    2. Who here can tell me what aquaculture is?  the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of fish, shellfish, plants, algae, and other organisms in all types of water environments.
  2. Have youth group themselves into groups of 4.
  3. Pass out a set of game rules to each group.
  4. Have each group read the rules aloud. Show the youth the video (online here) Make sure to remind them to read through the entire instruction sheet before beginning.

Setup

  • Each player gets one of each resource type, $200, and 7 fishing vessels.
  • Place one fishing vessel from each player onto their color circle on the game board.
  • The Sneaky Seal is placed on the rocks in the center of the board.
  • Chance cards are shuffled and placed somewhere off of the board.
  • Players roll the dice for starting order. The player with the highest roll goes first and order goes clockwise from there.

Gameplay

  • Anatomy of a Turn
    • If a player rolls a 6 on their first turn, they must re-roll.
    • Player rolls die.
    • Any vessel on a corner of a hex with the number rolled in the middle of it collects one of that hexagon’s designated resources. (If player rolls a 5, any player on the 5 salmon hexagon gets a salmon token and any player on the 5 soft-shell clam hexagon gets a softshell clam token.)
    • The player may trade with the fish market at any point in their turn.
    • The player may buy a chance card at any point in their turn.
    • The player may sell their aquaculture crop at any point in their turn.
      • 2 Sugar Kelp – $100
      • 2 Soft-Shell Clams – $100
      • 2 Blue Mussels – $200
      • 2 Salmon – $300
  • Rolling a 6
    • If a player rolls a 6 on any but their first turn, they get to move the Sneaky Seal.
    • If anyone playing has 7 or more resources, they must put all of their resources into a hat, pick out half. These resources been stolen by the seal and should be put back into the bank. If player has 7 resources, they should discard 3.
    • The player who placed the seal may steal one random resource from one of the players who has a vessel bordering the hexagon chosen for the seal.
    • If the seal is on a hexagon, players with a fishing vessel on this hexagon do not collect the resource of that even if its number is rolled until the seal is moved elsewhere.
  • Buying a new lease spot
    • For a player to place a new fishing vessel, they must purchase a new lease space.
    • New lease spaces must be adjacent to a space already owned – your boats can only travel so far!
    • The prices of the leasing spaces are listed on the space and depend on the price of the aquaculture around them.
    • A limit of 6 lease spaces can be owned.
  • Buying a Chance Card
    • A Chance Card may be purchased at any point during a player’s turn for $200.
    • There are four major types of Chance Cards.
    • When you buy a Chance Card, you play it immediately and receive whatever is on the card.
    • A maximum of 2 chance cards may be purchased per turn.
  • Note: Rolling the die does not indicate motion. No player should be moving their pieces.

How to win

  • A player wins once they have reached $1,200.

Discussion Questions

  • Did anyone have a strategy that did not work? What was it and why didn’t it work?
  • Did anyone have a strategy that did work? What was it and why did it work?
  • Did anyone take most of the spots where you could collect the more valuable aquaculture crop? How did this affect the game? How do you think this transfers to real life?
  • If you play using extension 1, how did adding the fish market change the game?
  • If you play using extension 2, how did adding trading between players change the game?
  • If you play using extension 3, how does getting rid of chance affect the game? Do you think that even a fisher who takes perfect care of their aquaculture can rule out chance?

Extension Ideas

  1. Add in the Fish Market
    1. The Fish Market
      1. Additional Setup: Place one aquaculture species on each of the tables in the marketplace so that you have 2 Sugar Kelp, 1 Soft-Shell Clam, 1 Blue Mussel, and 1 Salmon.
      2. A player can trade with the Fish Market at any point in their turn.
      3. Nets cannot be traded to the fish market.
      4. Players can trade any one resource they have for any other resource at the fish market.
      5. If a player wants to trade with the market for something not on a table, they must trade three like resources for a single market resource.
      6. If all market tables carry the same resource, the market is reset with a different resource on each of the five tables.
  2. Play another round of the game.  This time players can trade with other players but only when it is their turn. Players can ask if another player wants to trade money and/or resources for their money and/or resources.
  3. Play another round of the game.  This time players do not roll the die on their turn. Each turn, one of hexagon’s resources is given to each player with a fishing vessel on that space. A maximum of ten of each resource can be held by each player at a time. If they have eleven of one resource by the time they have their next turn, they must get rid of half of their resources because they have “gone bad.”

logo for the National Science Foundationlogo for Maine Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR)This activity is supported by National Science Foundation award #EPS-0904155 to Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine.