Underwater Hide and Seek

In this activity, learners experience firsthand how marine animals' adaptive coloration camouflages them from prey. Learners design fish out of red paper and then attempt to locate their fish on the wall in a darkened room, while looking through blue cellophane. In doing so, learners will explore concepts related to fish anatomy, adaptive and disruptive coloration, ecological principles, and the physics of light (as it passes through water). This activity is successful because these concepts can be more clearly understood if the learner has been exposed firsthand to some of the dilemmas facing these organisms in their natural environment.