2015
Mystery Mammal: One Whale, Many Lessons
NC Maritime Museum
Beaufort, North Carolina
252-728-7317
Mystery Mammal: One Whale, Many Lessons
Grade Level
High School (9-12)
Subject Areas
Biology, Math, History, Writing, Geography
Objective
Students will compare the bones of a human
arm and whale flipper to identify similarities
and differences, use deductive reasoning to
identify the whale based on the information
supplied, practice note taking skills, work as teams to solve problems and be able to identify and discuss
the traits of a mammal.
Method
Students will work together to gather information from the stranding of a marine mammal to answer a
series of questions regarding the site and to come to their own conclusions regarding the species of the
creature and cause of death.
Materials
Handout; Station information; Youtube Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rhWcXhuTGo) ;
Equipment to show the video with the public; Inflatable dolphin; Rope or fishing line; replica sperm
whale teeth; baleen; box of bones or paper puzzle; Notebooks; pens/pencils; Mystery Bone
Duration
2- 45 minute classes
Group Size
2-30 students
Key Words
Mammal- A warm blooded animal with hair or fur that secretes milk for their young, and gives birth to
live young.
Cetacea- The order Cetacea includes the marine mammals commonly known as whales, dolphins, and
porpoises.
Taxonomy- The science of classification of plants and animals
Marine Mammal- Mammals that rely on their aquatic environment for feeding.
Radiograph- an imaging technique that uses X-rays to view the internal structure of the human body
Entangled- During this lesson “entangled” often refers to animals that have become trapped in floating
trash, usually fishing line or rope, and have been unable to free themselves.
Beached or Stranded- This refers to when a marine mammal will purposely bring themselves up onto the
beach with a fatal injury or illness. Occasional this will also refer to a marine mammal that has already
passed away and has washed up onto the beach.
Baleen- Also called “Whale bone” this is a hard substance that hangs from the tops of the mouths of
some whales and used to strain their food from the ocean water.
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Mystery Mammal: One Whale, Many Lessons
Background
Over the past two decades 39 species of marine mammals (cetacea) have been spotted off of
the coast of North Carolina. Unfortunately some of these marine mammals will sustain fatal injuries or
illness that will cause them to “beach” themselves. When a marine mammal “beaches” themselves it
refers to when they purposely strand themselves on the beach, usually right before they pass away or
right after. In most cases scientists are unsure of why the animals beach themselves, but most agree
that it is a result of a fatal injury or illness. Between the year of 2001 and 2009 51,649 marine mammals
beached themselves on the coasts of the United States, 5,970 in the South East alone. In 2013 there
were 276 documented strandings of marine mammals in North Carolina.
In response to the marine mammals beaching or stranding themselves the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) created the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response
Program (MMHSRP) in the late 1980s. The goals of MMHSRP are to:
-facilitate collection and dissemination of data
-assess health trends in marine mammals
-correlate health with available data on physical, chemical, environmental and biological parameters
-coordinate effective responses to unusual mortality events
The North Carolina Marine Mammal Stranding Network is a group of dedicated staff and
volunteers that respond to reports of stranded or beached marine mammals on the coasts of Carteret,
Pamlico, Craven, Beaufort and Hammocks Beach State Park. The NC Marine Mammal Stranding
Network’s mission is to investigate strandings and improve their understanding of the biology of marine
mammals that inhabit their local waters, so that they can enhance conservation efforts. Between
November 2009 and September 2014 this group of dedicated volunteers responded to 299 strandings of
marine mammals.
Along with responding to reports of marine mammals that have beached themselves, the
Marine Mammal Stranding Network also do their best to respond to reports of marine animals that have
become entangled in trash, usually rope or fishing line. In these situations the volunteers often put
themselves at risk in hopes of disentangling the distressed animals and hopefully saving their lives.
There is a short video regarding this that accompanies this lesson that was put together by the Marine
Mammal Stranding Network.
The marine mammals that strand or beach themselves give scientists the opportunity to learn
from these creatures not only why they died, but also how they lived. As much as we know about
marine mammals, we still have a lot to learn and scientists use these unfortunate opportunities to learn
as much as they can about both the life and death of these marine mammals.
During this lesson students will be putting themselves in the shoes of the scientists and citizens
that make up the North Carolina MMHSRP and will be “responding” to a couple reports of entangled
and beached marine mammals and will have to determine for themselves what the proper procedures
for these situations should be and gather information from the site to learn about these marine
mammals.
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Mystery Mammal: One Whale, Many Lessons
Procedure
Outline:
Class #1 (45 minutes)
I.
Opening activity: Have students write down as many traits as
they can of a marine mammal.
i. Review what it means to be a mammal
1. Warm Blooded
2. Have hair or fur
3. Breathe air through lungs
4. Bear live young
5. Nurse their young
6. Depend on their aquatic environment for
food
II.
Break the class up into groups of 2-5 students and have them
work together to answer the following question.
“A whale has been found dead on the beach, you are a scientist
working with the Marine Mammal Stranding Team and you have just arrived on the scene.
What should you do first? What should you do second? Why?”
i. Why do whales beach themselves?
1. When a marine mammal becomes sick or disoriented it is not
uncommon for them to bring themselves up onto the beach. Scientists
are not sure why whales beach themselves, but it seems to be in
response to sickness and/or injury.
ii. Review the students’ answers by listing them on the board and decide as a class
what they think will be the first two or three things scientists will do when
arriving at the sight of a stranded marine mammal.
iii. Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program
1. Review what the MMHSRP is and their goals (see background)
III.
“All Wrapped Up: Disentanglement Lesson”
a. Set out the inflated dolphin with line wrapped around him as if he is “entangled” and
inform the students that they are now teams of scientists that are part of the Marine
Mammal Stranding Network for your classroom. They have just received the following
report and must decide as a team how to proceed.
b. “There is an entangled whale about 0.5 miles off the coast of Beaufort Inlet. You have a
boat to get to the whale. The person who reported the whale can stay with the whale
until you get there. They have a cell phone with them. The whale is swimming east,
toward Cape Lookout.”
i. You are on the disentanglement team. What eight items would you make sure
to take with you to disentangle the whale? Why?
ii. Create a procedure of at least 5 steps to disentangle the whale.
iii. Name three things you should NOT do.
c. If time allows show the youtube video “NOAA Video: Whale Disentanglement Network
Teams” that is approximately 5 minutes and 19 seconds long.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rhWcXhuTGo
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Mystery Mammal: One Whale, Many Lessons
d. Take this time to discuss the importance of recycling and have the students identify
other ways that trash in the oceans can affect marine life, not just mammals but also
birds and fish.
Class #2 (45 minutes)
IV.
V.
Have the class break back up into their groups of 2-5 students or “Teams of Scientists” and
inform them that they have now received another report of a marine mammal stranding on
your classroom’s coast.
a. In their groups the students will rotate between six stations to investigate a stranded
whale and see what they can learn from the whale, and see if they can identify the
whale species.
b. As a class review the questions that they need to answer about the stranded marine
mammal
i. How old was the whale?
ii. How long was the whale?
iii. How much did the whale weigh?
iv. What did the whale eat?
v. Was the whale healthy?
vi. How long ago did the whale pass away?
vii. How did the whale communicate?
viii. Fill in the whale’s taxonomy chart.
Rotate between stations- spend about 5-10 minutes at each
station depending on students
a. Teeth
i. Take a look at these tooth cross sections (pictured) of two different sperm
whales’ teeth. The smaller tooth is the tooth from the whale that beached
himself. Can you tell how old each of these whales were when they died?
ii. Compare these sperm whale teeth (pictured or replicas) to the baleen from a fin
whale. What do they tell you about the difference between baleen and toothed
whales and their eating habits?
b. Flipper Bones
i. Have one member of the group be a time keeper. For two minute piece
together the bones of the whale’s flipper into a flipper using only the human
radiograph (x-ray). On a scale of 1-10 (10 being perfect) how accurate do you
think your fine came out?
ii. Now look at the flipper radiograph and see how long it takes your group to
reassemble the bones of the flipper. Did your group make any mistakes the first
time that you fixed the second time? What?
iii. Compare the radiograph of the flipper to the human (the human was the same
age as the whale at the time of its death). What are the similarities between
the whale flipper and the human arm? What are some differences?
c. Mystery Bones
i. When putting the skeleton of the sperm whale back together experts
encountered a few bones that didn’t have an obvious place in the skeleton.
They used clues both from the bones and the surrounding bones to figure out
where these “mystery bones” belong and their function.
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Mystery Mammal: One Whale, Many Lessons
VI.
1. Take a look at this whale bone and look at the illustration below. Which
bone do you think this is? What do you think is the purpose of this bone
in the marine mammal?
2. Use the clues (listed on the paper behind the illustration) to see if your
answer is still correct, or if you need to change it.
3. Bones will naturally start to degrade while on display after a certain
amount of time. How would you preserve a bone so that it can be on
display at a museum for at least 100 years?
d. Stomach Contents
i. There is still a lot that we don’t know about marine mammals. As a result we
use many clues from inside the marine mammals that beach themselves to learn
about how they lived.
1. Can you guess what the whale was eating based on the jar and photo
contents?
2. What can you learn about whale health and food choice by what is in
the stomach and how big the contents are?
3. How would the stomach contents of a baleen whale
differ from the contents of a toothed whale?
4. Do you think these stomach contents came from a
toothed or baleen whale? Why?
5. What would it tell you if the stomach were empty in
a whale that had beached itself?
e. Spermaceti Oil
1. Examine the oil that was discovered in the marine
mammal’s head. Describe the oil (color, smell,
texture, etc.)?
2. What do you think people used this oil for?
3. What do you think the marine mammal used the oil
for?
f. Weight/Length
1. Use measurements you find from the diagram below. How long is this
sperm whale’s flipper in inches?
2. If the marine mammal’s is 1/10 of the animal’s full length, about how
long is the marine mammal in feet? (round to the nearest tenth)
3. Do you believe our marine mammal was fully grown? Why or why not?
4. Find the average height of the people in your group. If everyone was
that average height how many people could fit lengthwise inside this
marine mammal?
g. Map of where the specimen beached
i. Give longitude and latitude of the site and have the students locate where the
marine mammal stranded and have them write down the name of the landmass
and nearest body of water.
1. Name the landmass or island that the marine mammal beached or
stranded on.
2. Name the nearest body of water to where the marine mammal beached
or stranded on.
As a class review each station and the information that the students were able to gather
from that specific station, make sure that everyone’s information is correct and complete.
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Mystery Mammal: One Whale, Many Lessons
VII.
After completing all of the stations present the students with information about a few
different species of marine mammals, specifically whales, that commonly beach themselves
in North Carolina and have the groups identify their marine mammal.
a. Bottlenose Dolphin
d. Humpback Whale
b. Pygmy Sperm Whale
e. Harbor Porpoise
c. Harbor Seal
f. Sperm Whale
Extensions
Visit the NC Maritime Museum to view the actual skeleton and heart from the sperm whale the students
have been studying OR visit the “Bone Zone” where the Museum’s Natural Science Curator, Keith
Rittmaster, is actively studying North Carolina’s marine mammals and a member of the Marine Mammal
Stranding Network.
Evaluation
Have the students write their report for NOAA regarding the whale stranding. This report should state
their finding, conclusions and a theory about why the whale stranded themselves.
Resources
www.marinemammalsnccnc.com
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/health/
www.ncmaritimemuseums.com
www.bonehenge.org
“All Wrapped Up: Disentanglement Lesson”
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Mystery Mammal: One Whale, Many Lessons
NC Essential Standards
Science:
Bio.2.1
Analyze the interdependence of living organisms within their environments
Bio.2.1.3
Explain various ways organisms interact with each other (including predation, competition, parasitism,
mutualism) and with their environments resulting in stability within ecosystems.
Bio.2.2
Understand the impact of human activities on the environment (one generation affects the next).
Bio.2.2.1
Infer how human activities (including population growth, pollution, global warming, burning of fossil
fuels, habitat destruction and introduction of nonnative species) may impact the environment.
EEn.2.2
Understand how human influences impact the lithosphere.
EEn.2.2.1
Explain the consequences of human activities on the lithosphere (such as mining, deforestation,
agriculture, overgrazing, urbanization, and land use) past and present
Math:
QUANTITIES N-Q
Reason quantitatively and use units to solve problems.
N-Q.1 Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step problems;
choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the scale and the origin in
graphs and data displays.
N-Q.2 Define appropriate quantities for the purpose of descriptive modeling.
N-Q.3 Choose a level of accuracy appropriate to limitations on measurement when reporting quantities.
Solve equations and inequalities in one variable.
A-REI.3 Solve linear equations and inequalities in one variable, including equations with coefficients
represented by letters.
English Language Arts
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.1
Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and
relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information
clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2.A
Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information to make important connections
and distinctions; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., figures, tables), and multimedia
when useful to aiding comprehension.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3.D
Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the
experiences, events, setting, and/or characters.
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