Dr. Rae-Wynn Grant: Mock Debate

Activity: Mock Debate

Your classroom represents a small town in eastern California. Recently, several grizzly bears have moved into the area and begun to cause mischief. It’s small, at first: trotting through backyards, digging around fences, tipping over trash cans. Recently though, things have begun to escalate: Farmer Brown came out one morning to find that a large male grizzly has torn down the fence to his goat pen and chicken coop, killing several animals and scattering the rest. Though he managed to scare the bear off, it’s only a matter of time before it returns, now that it knows the Brown Farm is a source of food.

Split the class in two groups:

Group 1: Farmer Brown and his lawyers, who want to hunt the bear and push for more anti-bear measures in the surrounding area

Group 2: A local environmental protection group, which seeks to tranquilize and move the bear to a less populated area and decrease human-bear interactions in the community without killing them

The teacher/ educator will serve as judge.

Some questions each group should be pondering:

·        What should be done with the large male bear that attacked Farmer Brown’s animals?

·        What should be done about bears that come after?

·        What kinds of offense/ defense, if any, should locals employ against bears?

·        What has been done about bears in the past in this area?

·        How might the same problem affect different communities?