By Cynde McInnis, owner of The Whalemobile and our new partner in education!
Cynde’s program features a 43-foot inflatable humpback whale named after the real humpback Nile. This inflatable whale was the inspiration for our own inflatable whale, a fin whale named Ladder.
One of the upsides of COVID-19 has been being able to talk to students all over the country! Within two days, I talked with 1st graders in CA, 7th graders in ME and college students in NY. These students might never have been exposed to learning about whales, but because we are forced to use Zoom, Google Meet and the like, connecting is more accessible than ever.
In that light, I’m so excited to be partnering with Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation to combine our efforts to educate more children all across New England, the country and the world. At least for the foreseeable future, we won’t be able to take children into our inflatable whales, but together, we have a large variety of programs we can do with students virtually. Children are fascinated by whales, and we want to share our passion with them.
What makes a virtual program successful for us? We have been limiting our programs to 1 class at a time. That means the kids can ask questions whenever they want. We can accommodate some kids being in the classroom, and others being at home on Zoom. We have games that we play with the kids where they try their hand at being a scientist and identify individual humpback whales. To do this, it’s great when the microphone can be just left on so we can talk back and forth. When we are inside the whale, we are constantly asking questions about what they think. Where do whales get fresh water? Does their heart beat faster or slower than ours? What happens in their bodies after food goes through the intestines? It’s wonderful to interact as if I was standing in the classroom with them!
One of the most exciting parts of our programs is the inflatable whale. It’s obviously not the same virtually as it is in real life, but you know what? The children don’t know that. They are all still amazed by the size and get excited while it inflates. In order to create the virtual Whalemobile program, I set up the whale in my front yard and inflated it a few times, capturing it from different angles. I spliced it together and even filmed walking in the whale from the outside, as well as me entering the whale from the inside. The kids watch the whale inflate in my front yard and I hear things like, “It’s so big.” “Whoa”, and “This is epic”. Even through the screen, they are excited and understand how big it is. The best part of this was that someone driving by took a picture and posted it on social media. Someone else made it into a meme!!!
Help Us Reach All 50 States!
We are also hoping to reach students is all 50 states this year! Below you can see our progress so far this year.
We would love to share our passion for these animals and the amazing ocean they live in. Inspiring kids to help protect our planet is so important. We feel that having them care about these animals is a way to begin that desire to take action. Whether they are in schools, libraries, summer programs or being home-schooled, we would be grateful to have the opportunity to interact with your children. We are looking forward to sharing our current programs with you, and developing and sharing even more virtual and (eventually) in-person programs in the future!
