Tragedy of the Commons: Goldfish Crackers

This is a lab for Advance Placement Environmental Science or an elective Environmental Science or College Environmental Science. This lab explores the concept of Tragedy of the Commons using Goldfish Crackers. The game is played twice: once with no fishing restrictions, and once with a treaty that the students devise. Most likely the first game will not go beyond the first round since the students will have removed all of the fish. Using this knowledge, the students discover what the tragedy is, and they come up with a solution, and test it out in the second game.