Swimming Creatures - Lesson 3 Seals and Sea Cows

In this lesson, we learned all about pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, & walruses), what a true seal is and how to tell the difference between a true seal (cannot use rear flippers on land, small front flipper ending in claws, and no ear flaps) and a sea lion or fur seal (can use rear flippers on land, long hairless front flipper, and has ear flaps). We learned about the walrus family and found a video the boys loved on a polar bear hunting sea lions. Polar Bear Vs Walrus We learned about sea cows - manatees and dugongs. We did notebooking pages on true seals, sea lions, walruses and manatees making illustrations for each and writing down the interesting things they know about them. Experiment - Can blubber really keep pinnipeds (and whales) warm in freezing cold waters? Let's find out!
They globbed goops of petroleum jelly on a gloved hand and then put another glove over it. The other hand just had two gloves on it. Then they saw how long they could keep their hands under water. The layer of "blubber" really helped insulate their hand from the icy cold water!

2 comments

  1. That is a great Blogg Template and pics....I gave up....and will just be content....
    I love ya
    Andi

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  2. Oh, neat! I like the experiment. I'll have to remember this whenever we get to that.

    Will you believe that I still know all the animal orders by memory? I guess I'm obsessed.

    P.S. The previous comment was deleted, b/c I wanted to edit. I'd said "families," rather than orders...and that wasn't right.

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