This interactive activity, adapted from material provided by the ECHO partners, explores the history of whaling in the Arctic and introduces a landmark study of whale populations.
This plan is a directed reading/thinking activity for the book, Dear Mr. Blueberry, with questioning and a follow-up written activity that focuses on the story elements. Another activity involves discussing facts about whales in the story and, then, finding other facts about whales that are used for a writing activity.
This video segment explores how one marine biologist used the scientific process to discover how whales hear.
This fun Web site is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, marine biologist Melanie Stiassny introduces kids to biodiversity in the ocean. The article contains three engaging, kid-friendly sections: Diversity of Life on Earth, which has an overview of six major groups of life on Earth and challenges kids to determine the correct group for nine different life forms, including blue-green alga, spiny lobster, red mangrove, and white marlin. It All Began in the Oceans, has a time-line that tracks the development of life on Earth since the planet formed. A Whale of a Tale, takes a look at the biggest animal that has ever lived and the AMNH's star attraction.
Meet the Marine BiOLogists is part of OLogy, where kids can collect virtual trading cards and create projects with them. Here, they meet three kids and one scientist who dive deep when it comes to learning about the ocean: Gabriela, an 11-year-old from New York whose interest in marine biology began with a family trip she took to the West Indies when she was five. Gwyneth, an 11-year-old from California who likes observing the sea birds when she visits her father's beach house. Luke, a nine-year-old from Belfast, Ireland, who watches the seals play in the Atlantic Ocean each summer during his two-month holiday at Portrush, on Ireland's north coast. Melanie Stiassny, an ichthyologist at the museum, who answers kids questions, including "Does identifying fish make a difference?" and "How do you know when you've discovered a new species?"
Explore the kinds of sounds made by marine mammals and what we can learn about marine mammal populations from recording their sounds with Scripps Institution's John Hildebrand. (28 minutes)
In this hands-on OLogy activity, kids learn how blubber acts as insulation between an animal's inner organs and the chilly ocean. The activity begins with a kid-friendly look at blubber that explains how it works and how an animal's behavior and environment can affect the thickness of its blubber. The illustrated, step-by-step directions show kids how to make and test two kinds of gloves -- one with a layer of blubber and one without. It includes a fun look at pilot whales (Thar She Blows!) and how they use their blow-holes to release excess body heat.
In this issue’s lesson, students exercise their observation skills to do some of the actual work of marine biologists who study the endangered North Atlantic right whale. They identify an individual whale by examining photographs taken at sea. They then examine a record of sighting of the whale in order to track its movements.
This is an interactive educational website on whales and marine research that includes projects for students and teachers.
What do whale ears look like? You might be surprised! These two versions of this diagram -- one with the anatomical parts labeled and one that students can label themselves -- compare the anatomy of a whale ear to that of a human ear. From Marine Biology: Environment, Diversity, and Ecology by David Lerman
This graphic from Evolution, traces the evolution of whales from land-dwelling mammals to the aquatic creatures we know today.
