Acting Out Extinction: Sneebles Under Threat

Abstract

A challenge for introductory students in conservation biology is to understand how different environmental and human factors – in particular, density-dependent and density-independent factors – can interact to increase extinction risk in species. To enhance students' processing of sometimes dry and challenging material, we use a kinetic exercise in which students become an endangered animal, move around their environment, and act out a series of scenarios that highlight how species can be driven down a path toward extinction.