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Educator's Guide Educator’s Guide WHALES Giants of the Deep Inside: • Suggestions to Help You Come Prepared • Essential Questions for Student Inquiry • Strategies for Teaching in the Exhibition • Map of the Exhibition • Online Resources • Standards Correlation • Glossary The Museum gratefully acknowledges amnh.org/whales/educators the Richard and Karen LeFrak Exhibition and Education Fund. ESSENTIAL Questions What is a whale? Many populations remain endangered. National and intergovernmental organizations collaborate to establish Whales are mammals; they breathe air and live their and enforce regulations that protect whale populations, whole lives in water. People often use the word “whale” to and some are showing recovery from whaling. The most refer to large species like sperm and humpback whales, effective whale protection programs involve the whole life but dolphins and porpoises are also whales since they’re cycle, from monitoring migration routes to conserving all members of the order Cetacea. Cetaceans evolved important breeding habitats and feeding grounds. from hoofed animals that walked on four legs, and their closest living relatives are hippos. Living whales are divided into two groups: baleen whales (Mysticeti, or How do scientists study whales? filter feeders) and toothed whales (Odontoceti, which Many kinds of scientists — conservation biologists, hunt larger prey). Whales inhabit all of the world’s major paleontologists, taxonomists, anatomists, ecologists, oceans, and even some of its rivers. Some species are geneticists — work together to learn more about these widespread, while others are localized. Many migrate magnificent creatures. Fossil specimens provide a long distances, with some species feeding in polar glimpse back some 50 million years, to whales’ waters and mating in warmer ones during the winter land-dwelling ancestors. New fossil whale species, and months. All must come to the surface to breathe, but even new living ones, are still being discovered. Scientists some dive to great depths to feed. Highly intelligent, use many methods to monitor these mysterious animals: whales have very strong social ties and often hunt and beach, boat, and plane surveys to count and identify migrate together. To communicate they make sounds individual whales and monitor their life histories; tissue that range from a dolphin’s series of clicks to the male sampling for genetic analysis; and satellite tracking to humpback’s complex song. understand habitat use and long-range migrations. Some living whale species are How are whales adapted to life in water? known only from strandings, which provide Whales can be vastly larger than land mammals because a unique opportunity to water supports their weight. Other specialized features study the anatomy and for living in water include: genetics of these marine • a streamlined shape, and layer of blubber that mammals. Scientists insulates against the cold analyze both physical fea- tures and DNA (extracted • plates of baleen that enable Mysticeti like right and from living animals and Bryde’s whales to filter huge amounts of krill and other historic specimens) to small prey from seawater resolve important issues • echolocation — most or all Odontoceti (toothed whales such as conservation like killer whales and porpoises) use sound to navigate, Photos help identify individual priorities and the whales. Each humpback has its own communicate, and find prey. placement of whales individual tail fluke, like human fingerprints. • nostrils, or blowholes, on the top of the skull so whales on the tree of life. can breathe without raising their heads out of water. How are whales an important part of (See insert for more about specialized adaptations.) many cultures? These massive and awe-inspiring creatures have played a How can people protect whales? vital role in the lives of coastal peoples around the world, For millennia whales faced only dangers like disease and as both a crucial natural resource and a source of ritual predators, but over the last few centuries, commercial and legend. They are sacred to New Zealand’s indigenous hunting for oil, meat, baleen, ambergris, and bone drove Mäori people, whose culture is rich with whale-riding some species to near-extinction. For example, 200,000 stories and traditions. Whale imagery is incorporated southern right whales were hunted down to fewer than into architecture and body art, and whale bone weapons 100 females. Chronic and acute noise pollution from and ornaments are prized. In the Americas, native people engines, seismic surveys, and sonar can interfere with also have long utilized and honored whales, relying upon essential whale communication. Water pollution, coastal their meat for food, bone for tools and building material, development, entanglement in fishing nets, collisions and oil for fuel — and upon the majestic animals with ships, and climate change also put whales at risk. themselves as source of spiritual inspiration. GLOSSARY COME PREPARED ambergris: a solid, waxy substance formed in the Plan your visit. For information about reservations, intestines of sperm whales that floats and occasionally transportation, and lunchrooms, visit washes ashore. Ambergris was once valued as an amnh.org/plan-your-visit. ingredient in perfume. Read the Essential Questions in this guide to see how baleen: flexible plates that hang themes in Whales: Giants of the Deep connect to your from the upper jaws of baleen curriculum. Identify the key points that you’d like your whales with hairy fringes that strain students to learn. small animals from sea-water. Although it’s made of keratin, like Review the Teaching in the Exhibition section of this your fingernails, baleen was once guide for an advance look at the fossils, models, artifacts, called “whalebone.” It was used for and interactives that you and your class will be many products that required encountering. strength and flexibility, like corset Download activities and student worksheets at stays and buggy whips, until plastics amnh.org/whales/educators. Designed for use before, were invented in the 20th century. during, and after your visit, these activities focus on blubber: a thick layer of fat under the outermost part themes that correlate to the New York State Science of the skin of marine mammals Core Curriculum. cetaceans: a common name for members of the order Decide how your students will explore the Whales: Giants to which all whales belong. The order Cetacea contains of the Deep exhibition. almost 80 species, and can be divided into Mysticeti • You and your chaperones can facilitate the visit using (baleen whales) and Odontoceti (toothed whales, includ- the Teaching in the Exhibition section of this guide. ing dolphins and porpoises). Cetaceans are carnivorous, and except for four species of freshwater dolphins, • Your students can use the student worksheets to all live in the ocean. explore the exhibition on their own or in small groups. echolocation: the process of emitting sound waves and • Students, individually or in groups, can use copies of listening to the echoes to locate food and avoid obsta- the map to choose their own paths. cles. Sometimes referred to as “biosonar,” echolocation evolved independently in bats, cetaceans (dolphins and CORRELATIONS TO NATIONAL STANDARDS other toothed whales), shrews and some other mammals. Your visit to the Whales: Giants of the Deep exhibition can be correlated to the following standards. krill: small, shrimp-like crustaceans that are the main food for hundreds of animals, from fish to birds to A Framework for K-12 Science Education Science Practices • Asking Questions and Defining Problems many baleen whales • Analyzing and Interpreting Data • Constructing Explanations mammal: a member of the class Mammalia, vertebrate and Designing Solutions • Engaging in Argument from Evidence • Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information animals descended from the common ancestor of the living placentals, marsupials, and monotremes. Almost Crosscutting Concepts • Patterns • Cause and Effect: Mechanism all mammals share certain physical characteristics: they and Explanation • Scale, Proportion, and Quantity • Systems and have hair; they’re warm-blooded; and they produce milk System Models • Function • Stability and Change to nurse their young. Core Ideas • LS1.A: Structure and Function • LS1.B: Growth sonar: the use of sound waves to detect submerged and Development of Organisms • LS1.C: Organization for Matter and Energy Flow in Organisms • LS1.D: Information Processing objects or calculate distances underwater • LS3.A: Inheritance of Traits • LS3.B: Variation of Traits • LS4.A: stranding: swimming or drifting onto land. Once Evidence of Common Ancestry and Diversity • LS4.B: Natural Selection • LS4.C: Adaptation • LS4.D: Biodiversity and Humans stranded, whales suffer internal organ damage, overheat, rapidly deteriorate, and usually die. National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies Thematic Strands • 1. Culture • 3. People, Places, and tree of life: a branching diagram that shows how forms Environments • 8. Science, Technology, and Society of life, both living and extinct, are related to each other • 9. Global Connections Teaching in the EXHIBITION Whales have long captured the imagina- Carving of Whale Rider tions of people around the world, who have Upon entering the exhibition you’ll see the representation of a young hunted, revered, and passionately protected man riding a whale. He is Paikea, an ancestral figure for New Zealand’s them.
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