Whales and dolphins belong to
the group of animals called Cetaceans. They are mammals which means
that they are warm blooded, give life birth, feed their young milk,
breathe air, and have hair on their bodies. There are about 75
species of cetaceans. Whales, dolphins and porpoises vary greatly in size.
Baleen whales (also known as the great whales), are larger than toothed
whales with the exception of the sperm whale which can grow up to 65 feet
in length. The blue whales is the larges animal on land or see
reaching a length of up to 110 feet and weighing nearly 200 tons.
The heart is a blue whale is about the size of a small compact car, and
the blood vessels are so large that a person could insert their arm
through them.
Toothed whales use echolocation
to find their food and to navigate. They make click which rebound or
"echo" off of solid objects in the sea and help the whale
to identify the object and determine how far away it is.
Activities
 Divide the class into groups of
3-4 students. Give each group a bucket of sidewalk chalk and take
them outside to a hardtop area such as the basketball court, an empty
parking lot, etc. Have the students make life sized drawings of
whales using the chalk. Have the students stand inside
the drawings. Estimate how many people could stand inside the
different types of sharks.
Build
a life sized model of a whale - you'll find the information here Take
a whale to school!!
To demonstrate how baleen
filters the small plankton and krill which baleen whales eat, do the
following experiment: Fill a rectangular pan with water.
Sprinkle coarsely ground black pepper over the top of the water. Run
your fingers through the water. Observe that you picked up very
little of the pepper. Run
a straight comb across the top of the water. It should pick up most
of the pepper.
Make
Save the Whale bumper stickers out of white contact paper. Give each
student a piece about the size of a real bumper sticker. Students will draw on
the contact paper with Sharpie pens. Peel the backing off and they have a bumper sticker
for their car or anywhere else they want to put it.
When you talk about baleen whales, introduce plankton to the students.
Have students use tiny
glass or plastic beads and feathers to create their own plankton. Glue
them into plastic petri dishes and have each student write a description of
the plankton they have invented.
To teach the concept of echolocation,
take the class outside and
have them form a circle with one student in the center blindfolded.
Another student enters the circle, but is not blindfolded. This is
basically an adaptation of the game Blind Man's Bluff. The student calls
out the name of the blindfolded student who in turn tried to tag them.
This
activity demonstrates how blubber keeps a whale warm. You need a bucket of
ice, a pair of rubber gloves, a large baggie and a can of shortening. Fill
the baggie with shortening and have the student put their hand which is wearing
a rubber glove into the shortening. Secure the baggie over with hand with
a rubber band or thin strip of cloth. Next have the student place their
hand with the baggie and shortening into the bucket of ice. They will see
that the shortening insulates the hand and keeps it from becoming cold.
Blubber serves the same function on whales.
Make
scrimshaw with the students. Fill aluminum baking cups with plaster
of Paris. Once hardened, give each student their plaster disk.
Have them draw a design on the plaster. Using a nail, have the
students etch the design. Paint the plaster with black, dark blue,
or dark gray tempera paint. Brush over the paint, leaving the etched
lines dark. You can also do this activity with a styrofoam meat
tray.
Humpback
whale feeling activity
Activities
with Plankton
Whale
Words
Map
a Humpback Fluke
Humpback
Whale Photo-identification Curriculum Unit
Build
a Whale activity
Beans
and Baleen simulation
Sea Otters, Seals, and Sea Lions
Activities
This game
is called Whale and Otter. It is adapted from an activity called The
Thicket Game in Project Wild. Go outside to the playground area.
Mark out a rectangular playing area. On one end place paper sea
urchins the teacher or students have made. In the center area place about four hula hoops
which represent the kelp forest. The students start at one end with the
whales swimming around the ocean (field). The object is to cross the ocean three
times and get a sea urchin each time without being "eaten" (tagged) by
an orca whale. The otter can hide in the kept forest and is safe from the
whale, but he can only stay there for 1 minute. Try to make it a
little more interesting, so if someone is a mother sea otter, they have to get 5 sea
urchins. Have one handicapped sea otter who has survived an attack by a
killer whale. He has to hop on one foot. Try to have one
whale per 4 otters. Play several rounds varying the ratio of whales
to otters. At the conclusion of the game, discuss and graph the results
of each round.
Sea
otters live in kelp forests. Have the students make a model of a
kelp forest.
Use about 20 feet of brown
paper to cut out the kelp's stripe. The width of the stripe should
be about four inches. Next, have students make the kelp leaves out
of green bulletin board paper. The length of the leaves should be
about one foot. Make sure they make a bladder at the base of each
leaf. Staple the leaves along the sides of the stripe. Hang
the stripe from the ceiling of the classroom. You will have to
actually staple some of the stripe across the ceiling to make the
canopy. Make the holdfast out of baggies filled with salt or
sand. Make rocks out of styrofoam blocks spray painted grey.
Place the holdfasts on top of the rocks. Students can make large
fish and sea mammals to suspend from the ceiling. They can make
starfish and sea urchins out of clay and put them on the
ground. Students love to take a book and read in the kelp
forest.
Growing
Up is Hard to Do This is a fun game about the perils of a sea otter
pup.
One
for You, Two for Me This is a really neat activity about the
food chain of pinnipeds.
What
are Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses? Lots of good information
about pinnipeds.
|
