Electric Fish Simulation

Purpose:

The purpose of this activity is to simulate how an electric fish is able to maneuver through its surroundings using it’s electric organ instead o its eyes.

Materials:

Procedure:

  1. One child is selected to be the fish. This person is brought out of the room, blindfolded, and given the buzzer.
  2. Meanwhile, inside the room one child is selected to be the food and he or she is given a dinger. The rest of the children are given the clickers. While the fish is waiting outside, the clicker fish and the food should arrange themselves in a simple but large circle.
  3. The fish is now brought into the room and led into the middle of the circle, blindfolded. Then he is spun around a couple of times so that he does not know where he is facing.
  4. Now his objective is to find the food. He takes his buzzer and points directly in front of him and buzzes. If one of the clickers is within three feet, and directly in front of him, it should click back at him once. If the clicker is near the food it should click twice. If the clicker is not within three feet or not directly in front of the fish then it should NOT click back at all. When the fish buzzes directly at the food and is within three feet of it, the food should ding back at the fish, and the round is over. The hummer fish can recieve a piece of candy to model the food.

Explanation:

This game is meant to educate people about the way that an electric fish functions. Electric fish have a distinctly different way of perceiving their environments, and this simulation demonstrates, in a simple way, exactly how that works. The buzzing resembles the noise that the electric organ discharge (EOD) makes, and the clicks resemble the electric organ discharge of the clicker electric fish (this could be varied to represent any object in the fish's path). The electric fish uses his EOD to "see" in his environment.