Goals:
1. Students will become familiar with the actual size of whales.
2. Students will successfully make scale drawings of their whale by using conversions.
3. Students will successfully learn about certain whales food consumption, physical makeup, and habitation.
Resources:
1. Measuring activity adapted from:
http://www.seaworld.org/baleen_whales/howbig.html
2. Information about different types of whales from:
Teacher Background:
All aspects of teacher background dealing with whales can be found using the two Internet sites that are listed above.
Time: This lesson will take about two hours to complete. The students will need about one hour to gather and read their information and do the whale measurement. The students will need another hour to draw the scale model of the whale and write the brief report.
Procedure:
Step 1- Students will be divided into small groups with no more than six groups in a class.
Step 2- Each group will then take turns selecting a certain whale to pick from. The class gets to pick from the bowhead, gray, blue, fin, humpback, or killer (orca) whale.
Step 3- If there is enough computers in the room that are linked to the internet the teacher should write the address http://whales.magna.com.au/home.html on the board and instruct the students to find information about their whale. If there is not enough computers then the teacher should pull the necessary information off of the web site and give each group the appropriate information.
Step 4- Tell the students that they must find information about the whales size, food consumption, physical make-up, habitat, and other interesting information about their whale.
Step 5- Give each group a 30m (about 100ft.) rope. Then tell the students to measure off the length of their whale on the rope and put a piece of tape where the length of their whale is. After this give each group a different color tape and put everyone's whale size on one rope that will remain in the classroom for the whole unit. Students will gain a better understanding of the size of whales by doing this activity.
Step 6- Have each group write a brief report about their whale using the information from the Internet addresses. (see rubric)
Step 7- Have each group then construct an accurate scale drawing of their whale on a piece of paper. Let students choose whatever measurement they want for the drawing (i.e. one inch equals 25 feet). Make sure students put the scale on the drawing.
Assessment:
Students will be assessed based on the following rubrics for the group work and report.
4 points= Worked well with the group all of the time.
3 points= Worked well with the group most of the time.
2 points= Worked well with the group some of the time.
1 point= Had many problems working cooperatively with the group.
4 points= Covers all aspects of certain whale (size, habitat, food consumption, physical make-up, and "interesting facts" category).
3 points= Covers most aspects of certain whale.
2 points= Covers some aspects of certain whale.
1 point= Covers some aspects of certain whale.
4 points= Little or no spelling errors in the report.
3 points= Few spelling errors in the report.
2 points= Some spelling errors in the report.
1 point= A lot of spelling errors in the report.
4 points= No mathematical errors in drawing the model whale.
3 points= Most of the mathematics in drawing the model whale are correct.
2 points= Some of the mathematics in drawing the model whale are correct.
1 points= A lot of mathematical errors in drawing the model whale.
2 points= Evidence (neat, detailed, colored) of time put into drawing the model picture of the whale.
1 point= No evidence(sloppy, no detail, not colored) of time put into drawing the model picture of the whale.
Curricular Strands and Major Concepts:
1. Math- Students will be using measurement in measuring the size of the whale. Students will also be using math by doing conversions in order to produce a model scale of a whale.
2. Science- Students will learn whale information from the Internet addresses given.
3. Communication Arts- Students will be putting together a brief report on their whale. Students also will have an opportunity to be artistic in their model scale of the whale.
Possible Extensions:
1. Students could give the drawings of their model whales to different group and according to the scale the students could draw a life size whale.
2. Students could make up a fictional story about their type of whale using information that was researched.
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