Protective Coloration
Preparation: Cut out squares of wrapping paper or colorful magazine pages for the students
to use as fish habitat. Copy enough fish silhouettes for each student. Provide colored pencils,
markers or crayons.
Warm up: Ask students to define camouflage. Camouflage is protective coloring that helps to
hide an animal. Have students give examples of animals that are camouflaged. If two of those
species mentioned above swapped habitats, would they still be camouflaged? Probably not.
Camouflage is usually specific to the animal’s habitat.
Activity:
1. Each student gets a piece of wrapping paper or a magazine page that will represent the
habitat their fish lives in.
2. Have students decorate their fish silhouette to blend into the habitat.
Wrap up: Review: what is camouflage and why is it helpful? Camouflage is a type of
coloration, blending the animal into its own habitat. It helps hides the animal from predators as
well as prey. Have the students move their fish to another habitat. Is the fish still camouflaged?
Some animals are ‘specialists’ and only are camouflaged to a very distinct environment. Some
animals are ‘generalists’ and can fit in a few different habitats. How might this affect the
survival of a species, long term? Animals that can occupy more habitats are less susceptible to
extinction.