Are you studying animal adaptations with your class? If so, there is nothing quite like a camouflage lab to learn first-hand how concealing coloration can help animals avoid being eaten by predators! This lab activity is very simple and effective for showing students how natural selection favors animals that can hide from predators.

This lab is entertaining because students get to be the “predators” by hunting for different “prey” (black and white beans) in a “habitat” made of white rice. Which prey will they capture most easily? Which prey will survive? Try this lab activity to find out!

In this post, you will learn how to set up a camouflage lab in your classroom. You can also get printable versions of these directions, worksheets, handouts, and classroom posters to use during this lab in my Camouflage Lab Mini Study!

If you are looking for even more ways to study animal adaptations, I think you will also like my bird beaks lab – read the separate post about the bird beaks lab.

Gather Your Materials

Gather the following materials for the camouflage lab. Each lab group will need:

• Dry white rice
• Dry black beans
• Dry white beans
• Tweezers
• Pie tin or shallow bowl
• Paper cup
• Stopwatch
• Student lab handouts (1 set per student)

Set-Up & Directions

1. Pour some rice into each bowl. The rice will be the background or habitat.
2. Mix equal numbers of black beans and white beans into each bowl. The black beans are the regular animals. The white beans are the camouflaged animals.
3. In each lab group, one student will be the predator and another student will be the timer. Students can take turns in these different roles.
4. The predator will use the tweezers or “beak” to catch as many beans as possible in 30 seconds and place them in the paper cup or “stomach”.
5. After 30 seconds, count how many beans of each color were captured, and how many beans of each color survived.
6. Repeat as needed so all students have a turn being the predator.
7. Check with your students: which “animal” was eaten the most? Which avoided the predators the most?
8. After the activity, discuss the benefits of concealing coloration with your students.
9. Students should complete the reflection questions.

Reflection Questions

1. Did more black beans or white beans survive?
2. Which beans were easiest to spot in the rice?
3. How does camouflage help animals?
4. Would the results of the lab activity be different if you used black rice as the background? How so?
5. Would the results of the lab activity be different if you used gray rice as the background? How so?
6. Which would get eaten more in a forest with lots of leaves and moss: a green lizard or a yellow lizard?
7. Which would get eaten more in a desert with lots of sand, rocks, and dry plants: a greenish blue snake or a tan and gray snake?

Expand on this Activity

Try these ways to expand on your camouflage lab:

1. Natural selection over several generations:

Expand on this activity to learn about natural and adaptations.  Repeat the activity a few times to represent successive generations. Use the proportion of beans of each color after predation to determine the proportion of beans of each color in the next generation.

For example, if you started with 50 total beans (25 black beans and 25 white beans), and 5 black beans and 20 white beans remained after predation, then you should start the next generation with 10 black beans and 40 white beans.

Have students perform these calculations to add math to this lab.  Afterwards, discuss which coloration thrived in the long run. Did either coloration disappear from the population after several generations?

2. Mimicry:

Did you know that some harmless animals mimic dangerous animals? A good example of this is the harmless viceroy butterfly, which looks very similar to the poisonous monarch butterfly. Another example is a non-venomous milk snake, which has nearly the same red and black stripes (called “warning coloration“) as a venomous coral snake! This type of disguise is called “mimicry“, and it is a type of camouflage.

Expand on your camouflage lab by adding in a mimicry lab activity. The purpose of a mimicry activity is to show how pretending to be dangerous benefits prey animals. There are many versions of a mimicry lab, such as the activity shown in this candy camouflage YouTube Video from Science Buddies.

This lab comes from my Reptiles Unit!

Your students will love the illustrated learning materials, plus you’ll support Wild Earth Lab with your curriculum purchase!

Explore more curriculum from Wild Earth Lab:

If you enjoyed this post, I know you will love using my environmental science materials in your classroom!

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