WHALES

High-Interest Reading Comprehension

Teacher Guidelines u pages 1 – 2

3-5
Instructional Pages u pages 3 – 5
Activity Pages u pages 6 – 7
Practice Pages pages 8 – 9
GRADE
u
Answer Key u pages 10 – 11
 Classroom Procedure: Lesson Title: Whales

1. Introduce the lesson by asking students, "What is the Subject: High-Interest Informational Reading
largest animal to ever live on Earth?" Students may reply Approximate Grade Level: 3 – 5
dinosaurs, but blue whales are the largest animals ever
living on Earth. They are bigger than even the most giant Objectives: The student will practice various
close reading and comprehension skills.
dinosaurs.
In addition, the student will learn about the
2. Distribute the Whales Content pages. Read and review habitat, diet, and behaviors of whales.
with the students referring to the text features and State Educational Standards*:
text structures. To assist students in comprehending LB.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.2
the content pages, have the students make notes in LB.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.4
the margins, highlight important parts, or annotate NGSS.3.LS4.1–5
paragraphs. Approximate Lexile Reading
Comprehension Level: 810L to 1000L
3. Distribute the Activity Page. Facilitate a brief discussion of
the Naval Report. Why do students think the naval officer Class Sessions (45 minutes):
made this report (inferential comprehension)? What does 1 to 1½ class sessions
the naval officer feel about whales? Teaching Materials/Worksheets:
Content Pages (3), Activity Pages (2), Practice
4. Distribute the Practice Page. Read and work with Pages (4)
students. Be sure to have the students refer to the
specific paragraph where they found the information to Student Supplies:
Markers, pencils, pens, highlighters
respond to the questions. An important comprehension
skill is to re-read material. Prepare Ahead of Time:
Copies of worksheets
5. In closing, ask students what they learned about
*Lessons are aligned to meet the education objectives and goals of
whales while reading or about something related most states. For more information on your state objectives, contact
to comprehension, annotations, or some other your local Board of Education or Department of Education in your state.

comprehension skill. Then, create a Venn Diagram with

the title, Humans and Whales. For advanced students,
ask what other mammals use echolocation (possible
answers include bats, dolphins, a few species of birds,
and possibly the hedgehog).

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 Teacher Notes
The lesson allows teachers to teach and students to practice grade-appropriate reading comprehension,
foundational reading, and reading fluency skills. These lessons are designed to be completed in one
or two class settings. Each lesson is a high-interest content lesson that students want to read, which
teachers will want to incorporate into their instruction. The lesson is appropriate as a whole-class, stand-
alone lesson or as an independent small-group activity. Check out the Learn Bright video that goes with
this lesson.

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Whales Common name: Whale
Type: Marine mammal
Where they live: In every ocean
Diet: Carnivore
Life span: Unknown

What are whales?

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Even though whales live in the water, they are mammals just like you and me. Humans and whales
breathe air, have hair, are warm-blooded, give live births to their young, and feed their young milk. They
are quite large—much bigger than humans. In fact, a whale's size can range from 9 to 98 feet! Think of the
length of a professional basketball court. And these massive mammals have quite the range in weight, too.
They can be as small as the 600-pound dwarf sperm whale or weigh more than 200 tons, like the colossal
blue whale. Imagine the average house (approximately 2,000 square feet), and you have some idea how
heavy 200 tons is.
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There are two types of whales: toothed and baleen. Toothed whales use their teeth for hunting and
eating. This group includes sperm whales and orcas, as well as dolphins, porpoises, and narwhals.
Speaking of narwhals, a narwhal's horn is actually one long tooth protruding or sticking out through its lip!
Baleen whales are larger than toothed whales and include blue whales, humpbacks, bowhead whales,
and many others. They eat by straining creatures through the fringed plates of long, fingernail-like material
called baleen.

What do whales eat?

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Toothed and baleen whales eat very differently. Toothed whales are grabbers and suckers
while baleen whales are skimmers and gulpers. Toothed whales all have teeth. However, they
differ in the number, size, and position of the teeth in their mouths. And from species to species,
the teeth even have different purposes. For example, orcas use their teeth to grab food,
but narwhals use their long tooth tusk to help them "taste" in the
surrounding water.

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Whales
What do they eat?
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While they all have teeth, toothed whales don't use their teeth for chewing
food. They do not have molars to grind up their food, so they swallow it whole or
in large chunks. Toothed whales use echolocation to help them find and target
their prey. They usually eat fish, squid, and octopus. But sometimes, orcas will
also eat sharks or other marine mammals.
Baleen whales do not have teeth. Instead, they have hundreds of
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overlapping baleen plates growing downward from the gums of the upper
jaw. Baleen is made out of keratin, the same thing our hair and fingernails
are made of. Each whale species has a unique number, size, and color of
baleen plates. Baleen is strong and flexible, making it the perfect colander
or filter to strain out seawater and keep in prey. Inside the baleen plates is
a hairy fringe, which is how the whales earned the nickname "mysticete"
or mustached whales. They swim through patches of plankton with their
mouths open. Tiny plankton caught by the baleen remain trapped in their
mouths. Grey whales suck amphipods like a vacuum cleaner from the bottom of the ocean. They take in
mouthfuls of mud and food before forcing the water and mud out through their baleen to capture their prey.

Other interesting facts

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Under water, whales are great communicators and make
otherworldly noises that can be heard for miles. They
have complex combinations of moans, howls, and cries
that they produce when they push air around in their
head. The sound of the air moving around is amplified
through a blob of fat on the top of their jaw. People
believe that whales communicate through these sounds.
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The blue whale is the biggest whale alive today.
But not only is it the biggest today, but it is the
biggest creature to have ever lived on Earth. They
are even larger than a brontosaurus (or any other
dinosaur)! Because they live in the ocean, salt
water supports their bodies, which helps them float.
The females are larger than the males, and the blue
whales in the Southern Hemisphere are larger than
those in the Northern Hemisphere.

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Whales
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While the blue whale is an
enormous creature, it doesn't
have the largest brain. The largest
brain on Earth belongs to the sperm
whale. Their brains are almost 500
cubic inches. That is five times the
volume of our human brains, which are
around 80 cubic inches! Sperm whale brains
also weigh six times as much as a human brain.
That means their brains weigh about 20 pounds! Sperm whales can
have such large brains because they have giant heads, up to a third of their
overall body length. But their brain doesn't take up most of the room. Instead, inside their head is a large
cavity, or open space, filled with yellowish oil called spermaceti. This oil was valuable to whalers who sold
it for lamp fuel, creams, and ointments.

Why are they important to the environment?

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Whales are at the top of the food chain and play an essential role in the health of the ocean ecosystem.
Whale poop fertilizes microscopic phytoplankton, on which all sea life depends. In addition,
phytoplankton help lessen climate change by capturing carbon and producing over half of the world's
oxygen. The relationship between whales, phytoplankton, and the atmosphere is essential to sustaining a
healthy ocean and planet.
For a long time, whales were hunted, and blue whales are now rare because of widespread commercial
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hunting. Other whale populations ended up on the verge of extinction, while others were entirely wiped
out. Whale hunting has essentially stopped, but whales still face dangers. They often get caught in fishing
nets, which can be very dangerous.
Large vessels supporting oil and gas have increased shipping in the ocean, creating a lot more noise.
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Unfortunately, this noise masks many whale communications and makes it difficult for whales to find food
and mates. It also makes navigation and caring for their young much more difficult.

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 Activity Name _________________________ Date __________

Save the Whale!

Instructions: Read the "Naval Officer Report" for January 14. Create a poster explaining why the
whale should return to her pack and how the humans will help her. Use the box on the next page
or use a separate sheet of paper. (For fun, you can also read the follow-up report that describes
what happened to Springer!)

Naval Officer Report: January 14

A young female killer whale (orca), thought to be 18–24 months old, was spotted on
January 14 in central Puget Sound in Washington State. Seeing a single, solitary
killer whale is unusual because killer whales usually travel in tight family groups called
pods. Orcas that are usually seen in Puget Sound consist of several pods called the
Southern Residents. This whale was not part of that population, and it is also very rare
for an orca to be in Puget Sound during the winter.
Several groups involved in killer whale research and conservation worked to identify
this young whale. They named her Springer. They confirmed that Springer is A73 ("A"
for her family group and "73" birth order) and had been on her own since the likely
death of her mother sometime before summer. Springer is a member of the Northern
Residents population, typically seen in the summer about 300 miles to the north in
waters between the Canadian mainland and Vancouver Island. It is unusual for a
Northern Resident killer whale to be in Puget Sound.
Although she had been eating, she had some medical conditions, such as worms
and a skin rash. In addition to her health problems, she had become increasingly
interested in people and boats. Such behavior threatens her success in the wild, and
she needs to be removed from a busy shipping lane.

Naval Officer Follow-up Report: July 14

On July 14, Springer responded excitedly to whales from her pod swimming near
the net pen. Officials from the Vancouver Aquarium and Canada's Department of
Fisheries and Oceans decided the time was right to release A73. The gate was raised
at about 2:45 p.m., allowing her to swim free.
Since her release, Springer has been sighted multiple times with her pod. She remains
healthy and has had two calves of her own, Spirit and Storm.

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Activity Name _________________________ Date __________

SAVE THE WHALE!

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 Practice Name _________________________ Date __________

Instructions: Show what you know!

1) What is keratin? Why does the author write words in bold print? (Text feature)
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2) How do the images relate to the content? (Text feature)

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3) In paragraph 6, the author uses the word amplified. What is the meaning of amplified? (Vocabulary)
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4) Why is the blue whale endangered? Where did you find the information? (Comprehension)
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5) How are the two types of whales different from each other? Where did you find the information?
(Comprehension)
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 Practice Name _________________________ Date __________

6) Why does the author say whales are great communicators? (Inference)
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7) How does the baleen help a whale eat? Where did you find the information? (Close reading)
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8) Choose the word the author would say best describes the whale. (Point of view)
a. aggressive b. venomous c. enormous d. domestic

9) The author uses a simile in paragraph 5. What is it? (Figurative language)

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10) What is the author's purpose for writing "Whales"? (Author's purpose)
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11) What traits of humans does the whale also have? (Find information in the text)
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 Practice Answer Key
Name _________________________ Date __________

Instructions: Show what you know!

1) What is keratin? Why does the author write words in bold print? (Text feature)
Keratin is the material baleen is made out. It's the same thing our fingernails and hair are made of.
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Essential vocabulary words appear in bold print. The definition is in the sentence. Bold print points to
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the vocabulary we need to know to understand the text.
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2) How do the images relate to the content? (Text feature)

Images provide the reader with a visual that reinforces the text in the content. Images in this lesson
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help the reader visualize the characteristics of whales and the environment they live in.
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3) In paragraph 6, the author uses the word amplified. What is the meaning of amplified? (Vocabulary)
Amplified means to increase the volume of a sound.
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4) Why is the blue whale endangered? Where did you find the information? (Comprehension)
The blue whale faces several threats, including hunters, ships, fishing nets, and extra noise. The
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information is in paragraphs 10 and 11. (See image after paragraph 11.)
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5) How are the two types of whales different from each other? Where did you find the information?
(Comprehension)
Toothed whales have teeth while baleen whales have lots of overlapping baleen plates made of
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keratin. Toothed whales are grabbers and suckers while baleen whales are skimmers and gulpers.
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The information is in paragraphs 3 and 5.
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 Practice Answer Key
Name _________________________ Date __________

6) Why does the author say whales are great communicators? (Inference)
Whales produce complex sounds that can be heard for miles when they push air around in their
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head. The sound of the air moving is amplified by a blob of fat on the top of their jaws.
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7) How does the baleen help a whale eat? Where did you find the information? (Close reading)
The baleen is strong and flexible, which helps the whale filter out water and keep in prey. The
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information is in paragraph 5.
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8) Choose the word the author would say best describes the whale. (Point of view)
a. aggressive b. venomous c. enormous d. domestic

9) The author uses a simile in paragraph 5. What is it? (Figurative language)

Grey whales suck up amphipods from the bottom of the ocean like a vacuum cleaner.
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10) What is the author's purpose for writing "Whales"? (Author's purpose)
The author's purpose is to describe and inform readers about this enormous animal.The author also
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wants to explain why whales are essential to the environment and mention the dangers whales face.
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11) What traits of humans does the whale also have? (Find information in the text)
Humans and whales both breath air, have hair, are warm-blooded, give live birth to their young, have
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teeth, and feed their young milk. The information is in paragraph 1.
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