This is an outline and resource for classroom teachers, science camps, ocean bowl teams, or culture camps.

Learning objectives: 

Students will be able to identify threats to marine mammal health, including human threats.

Students will be able to look for signs of normal healthy functioning and abnormal functioning or pathology.

Students will practice data collection and using observations to develop scientific inference. 

Engagement objectives:

Students work as a team with differentiated roles promoting communication and contribution.

Student-led activity is an immersive, intimate, and awe-inspiring experience with one of the world's largest and most cryptic species. 

Students engage in science accumulating knowledge through trial and error. 

Introduction

Ideas for engaging prior knowledge

• What types of animal parts or carcasses have you found on a beach or in the woods?

• Have you ever cut open an animal?  In science class?  On a hunting or fishing trip?  How might that experience be different for an animal that was discovered already dead?

• Have you ever seen real-crime or fictional crime investigation shows?  How is a whale necropsy like a police investigation?

What do you think...

• Are some causes of death for a whale?  Human-caused? or natural?

• Why might it be important to know how a whale died?

• How might you look for evidence in the carcass of a whale for the cause of death in a whale?  

Vocabulary: 

• Necropsy: an autopsy performed on an animal

• Autopsy: an examination of a body after death to determine the cause of death or the character and extent of changes produced by disease 

Materials

• A smartboard with touch screen capabilities is ideal for a fully immersive experience.  A projector or laptop computer will also work.  Open in full-screen mode to this website.

• Clipboard

• Writing utensil

• Printouts *(you may need to download the documents before you print). One set of printouts per team.  These include the blank dataforms and reference material that will help them.  There is also a folder here with answer keys for the Initial Assessment and Necropsy Report. 

Unnecessary but fun

• Duct tape

• Surgical gloves

• Rubber Boots

• Camera (iPhone camera works)

• any decorations to make the room seem more like a remote Alaska beach:  driftwood, shells, beach glass, marine debris, drawing on a whiteboard, etc.  

• Disposable rain gear

• nerf gun or super soaker

You can do this as a single activity (~90 minutes) or break it into 2 sessions with the initial assessment on one day followed by the necropsy on the next.  The actual necropsy occurred on a different day than the initial assessment so this would actually be a realistic way to do it.

A group of 1 - 4 students can work together.  With more students, it might work better to split the students into different groups or have the virtual necropsy up on multiple devices so different students can search through it at the same time (this again simulates a realistic whale necropsy situation where different groups work on different parts of the whale simultaneously).

Students can use a camera to document their findings or screenshots. 

HINTS!

1. The necropsy annotations do not follow the order of the questions on the initial assessment sheet (as in real life)

2. You can always go back to a section so feel free to click around the annotations to browse to get the lay of the land and then dig deeper. 

3. Let students know the goal is to gather as much information as they can, not necessarily to answer every question, so if they get stuck on something it's best to just move on. 

4. Annotations are there to help you interpret what you are seeing. So you if you see something that looks like a wound, click the annotation for more information. 

Scenario: Bring students into a room decorated as a remote Alaskan Beach. They are greeted by a room attendant who introduces themself as their "bear guard" from the forest service.  (He may be wielding a super soaker or nerf gun.)  In the room, the sounds of a helicopter are disappearing into the distance and being replaced by the sounds of crashing waves and Alaskan shorebirds.  Unfortunately, the veterinarian had another emergency and was unable to arrive, the bear guard tells them.  Here are the forms she left.  You will have to do the best you can in her absence to collect important scientific data and document observations that could help to determine the cause of death.   Also, unfortunately, the tide is coming in and the Bear Guard estimates you have about 1 hour before the carcass will be floating and too dangerous to work on.  The bear guard then says that before she left the veterinarian gave a few more instructions:  

"The necropsy volunteers [students] should split up and decide who will be writing down the data, who will be the camera person, and who will be actually touching the dead whale.  You can take turns with the jobs. [suggested: but anyone who touches the whale needs to be wearing gloves and rain gear from head to toe.  Any part of you that the whale touches or that you touch will be ruined because that smell doesn't come out.  You are going to have to use the duct tape to make a seal between your rain gear your boots and your gloves. Before they even approach the whale.]  Make sure to read the entire report first so you know what you are looking for.  You may discover things in a different order than how they appear on the sheet.  Work together as a team.  One of you should be taking photographs to document what you find." 

On a projector, smartboard or computer is the virtual whale necropsy already loaded (Click the "begin the necropsy" link to load it).

1. Students decide on roles,  help the "dirty people" get into their raingear, and tape them in. 

2:  Initial Site Assessment: (reference documents: Species identification, Sex identification, Length at Age)

3:  Necropsy Report

4. Post-Necropsy Debrief

• Using the information, you collected can you tell a plausible story about what happened to this whale and point to information that you gathered from the carcass to give evidence for your story.

• Are you confident in that explanation, or can you think of another story that is also supported by the evidence?

• What causes of death do you think are most UNLIKELY based on your examination?

• Can you think of any additional evidence would you want to be more confident in how the whale died?

• Was there anything in this whale's death that indicates an ongoing threat to other whales, other marine animals, or human health?

• Do you think you would enjoy working on an actual whale necropsy?  Why or why not?

• Was there anything that surprised you that you learned about whale anatomy of decomposition during the necropsy?

*Note these materials and site may be updated or changed at any time. *