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This year for 8th grade, my son is studying Ecology of the World by Beautiful Feet Books. I have always loved the stories that go with the units and we have always ran our homeschool with a major basis in reading great books. I also use games in our daily lives as a way to learn more and understand concepts.

Here are a few of the games that add to our ecology studies.

Ecologies is an easy to play card game where you build your own biomes starting at the bottom of the food web and growing it upward.  My son HATES doing art type things for school even though he loves to draw.  So, we skipped the lesson where he used crafty things to create his own food chain and food web and instead set up some biomes and talked about how each part of it works together.  There are also cards that damage the other players ecosystems.  This was a great visual of how ecosystems work as well as how they overlap with other ecosystems.  Each card explains what level of the ecosystem it belongs on as well as what it eats and what eats it with great illustrations of what it is.  

Ecosystem is a biologically-derived card drafting game. Players choose, pass, and arrange eleven different card types and earn points by aligning animals with habitats where they most flourish.  Each turn you place a card in your 4×5 ecosystem grid.  The pictures are gorgeous!  This covers ecosystems in general but there is also a savannah and coral reef version if you want to study a specific ecosystem.  

Cascadia  is a fun, easy to learn game where you build habitats and place animals in the correct habitat.  You begin by grabbing one point card for each animal so how you score will change each game. Each turn you take a habitat token and a wildlife token. Play until all tokens are used.  Players score points for how large each habitat is and points based on the point cards for each animal.  

Meadow is a game where players are nature-observing wanderers who compete for the title of the most skilled observer.  They wander the landscapes searching for different species of animals and plants and discover unusual items.  They can find small rents in tall grasses during their trip, spot a buzzard hunting prey, or even see an adder.  Then, players compete around the campfire where they present the results of their observations.  This is a more complex game to learn but a lot of fun to play.  

Photosynthesis is an environmental board games referring to the life cycle of trees, for science and biology enthusiasts. Photosynthesis uses an action points allowance system mechanism. Take your trees through their life-cycle, from seedling to full bloom to rebirth, and earn light points as their leaves collect energy from the revolving sun’s rays.

Emerge allows players to dive into the role of scientists and study developing ecosystems on newly risen islands.  Watch islands grow in three dimensions as you learn about them and populate them with vibrant plants and animals. Roll dice, gather research, and make discoveries to earn points and modify your research board. Modify your research board throughout the game, changing your focus and adapting your strategy. After 8 rounds, earn points based on island flourishment, biodiversity, and research objectives.  I actually just discovered this game and haven’t played it yet but it sounds like a great strategy game that we would love.

Nature looks like such a fun game to learn about ecosystems and I can’t wait to play it. Grow your species population, increase its body size, and give it traits to survive. Add Fast to escape predators. Add Scavenging to eat leftovers. Every choice shapes the ecosystem. Every player competes for food at a shared watering hole. Predators hunt. Prey defends. Food runs out. The ecosystem shifts every round and no 2 games play the same. Nature is a modular game system. Play it standalone or add modules like Flight, Jurassic, or Arctic Tundra to create entirely new ecosystems. Each module takes under 5 minutes to add.  This also has a solo mode.  

View all these games in one list on my Amazon storefront.   

Have you played any of these games before?  Which ones are your favorite or which game are you looking forward to learning to play?  Leave me a message below, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts.