How Whales Eat

Materials: Learning level: • Bucket/container for water (large enough • K-3 to fit a strainer inside) • Tweezers or tongs Duration: • Strainer • Variable ~15 minutes • Spoon • Beads or beans Procedure: • Fill the bucket with water and drop the Background info: beads into the water. This represents food • For this activity participants will be particles in the ocean. Ask participants to comparing and contrasting the ways that suggest, or hypothesize, the best way to baleen whales, toothed whales, and pick up this “food”. humans capture and eat their food. • Have participants experiment with the • Toothed whales have cone-shaped or tweezers, spoon and strainer to find the spade-shaped teeth used for catching tool that picks up the most “food” and the prey. They are carnivores that love to eat least water. fish. Their teeth are not used for chewing, • Show the participant the images of the only for capturing and holding on to the toothed whale teeth below. Ask how the food. whale teeth compare to the tools they are • Baleen whales feed by filtering or using. Which tool matches the closest? straining food from the water. They love to • Next, show the images of the baleen whale eat krill, fish, zooplankton, phytoplankton, and the baleen plate. Ask how the baleen and algae. Some, such as the right whale, compares to the tools they used. Which are called “skimmers”. These whales swim tool matches the closest? slowly with their huge mouths open to • Finally, ask the participants which tool take in large amounts of water and food. they think shows how humans might eat? They then push the water out past their • Share a picture of how you “ate like a baleen plates and the food gets trapped whale” with us on Facebook, Instagram, or inside to then swallow. Humpback whales Twitter @neaq trap their prey in a more unusual fashion by “bubble net feeding”. The feeding whale Extensions and Variations: dives underneath a school of fish and • Place other sized items in the bucket to exhales a large amount of air. The bubbles represent larger and smaller sized food startle the fish and send them to the and challenge participants to decide which surface of the ocean. The whale then tool will pick up the most food. swims up through the bubbles with its • If there are several participants joining, mouth open to engulf its prey. maybe have race to see who can pick up the most food the quickest using the tools Vocabulary: provided. • Toothed whales - whales with teeth to • Use this activity as an open-ended play catch their food experience – “Can you find another tool • Baleen whales - whales with baleen to around the house that may work better at catch their food. collecting the food out of the water?” • Baleen plates – modified teeth to catch food • Carnivore – animal that eats only meat • Prey – the organism that is eaten

Toothed Whales vs. Baleen Whales

Toothed whale:

Orca

Whale Teeth

Baleen Whale:

Bowhead Whale

Baleen Plate