Rules

How to Play Marsh Madness

Marsh Madness is a fun and interactive way for students to learn about South Carolina's marsh and estuarine animals! The battle stories are meant to be fun and entertaining! We realize that some of these animals would never come in contact with each other in the wild, but we ask students to choose which animal is most likely to survive in their own habitat based on their adaptations and defense mechanisms. We hope students will use their creativity and critical thinking skills to analyze these match-ups!

Thirty-three animals have been selected to compete in the 8 week tournament. Students will research the animals in each match up and score them based on diet, agility, defense mechanisms, and superpower. They will then select which animal advances to the next round. Visit our Meet the Contenders page to see this season's competing animals. Click on each animal to view their information page and feel free to have students do additional research if needed! We've created a scoring worksheet to help students decide who will win each battle. You can access it here.

Compete

This is a friendly competition between classes! Each class or team will submit one completed bracket by the first Friday in February in order to participate in the Marsh Madness tournament. If you teach more than one class, you can submit one bracket per class. Just be sure to name your team appropriately.

You can choose how you want your class to participate. You can assign students to research the animals and help the class choose a winner. Students can fill out their own individual brackets or work in teams. However, only one bracket can be submitted per class.

Battle Rules

A couple things to note about the battles:

Battles are battles to survive, not always battles against each other. Animals may battle over resources or space or other factors in their habitats. If there is a battle over an item (such as food or nesting space) the animal that succeeds in securing the food or nesting space is the victor. The animal that retreats empty handed does not advance.
Winners are determined based on four categories: Diet, Agility, Defense Mechanisms, and Superpowers. (Injuries and upsets can also affect battle outcomes.)

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