Educational Resources

Let's learn about whales and dolphins!

Since we can't come to you in schools, summer camps, or summer school, we have made virtual presentations for you to enjoy!

It doesn't matter if you are a classroom teacher, homeschool educator, camp counselor, or parent looking to entertain your kids, we've got you covered with educational and fun activities to help all ages learn about whales and dolphins.

We are adding new education resources - videos, workbooks, and activities - all the time, so be sure to check back to see what else we added!

We also offer virtual presentations that you can share with your classroom or camper! You can pick out one of the topics that we covered in our Facebook Live streams or do a Q/A with a marine biologist! For more details, email us at contact@beta.whales.org.

This June, we had lots of fun and free virtual events that are perfect for all ages. You can still watch them here!

New England Whale Festival - June 8, 9, & 11 - includes workshops on how to turn trash into art, book readings, artists, and a panel of whale experts with the opportunity for you to ask questions!
Orca Action Month - all June - includes daily activities that you can do at home for prizes, weekly craft live streams, orca happy hour chats, virtual trivia and a screening of Blackfish!

Activities

Do you think you can spot the difference in our worksheet?

Download it here
- Find the answers here

For those that just enjoy coloring, Lisa Joan Art has some beautiful coloring pages that you can download!

We have a new challenge for students to further their at-home learning AND become ocean advocates.

Become a Dolphin Defender!

The program is perfect for kids of all ages (younger kids may need some help from someone older) and you get a fun certificate from us at the end!

Do you think a whale could fit in your driveway? Try it in our activity where you can measure out the lengths of different species of whales to visualize how truly big they are!

Download it here.

Workbooks

We are so excited to offer both of our activity books to keep you occupied! Dive into the world of Southern Resident orcas and learn the story of Coral, the humpback whale, all while doing some fun activities!

DOWNLOAD ORCA ACTIVITY BOOK

DOWNLOAD HUMPBACK ACTIVITY BOOK

These workbooks were made possible thanks to the generosity of the Jessica Rekos Foundation.

Videos

Bring whales home to you!

Watch our video and learn about the cool marine creatures that live in the Gulf of Maine!

Want to use this video as a learning activity? We made a worksheet to go with it, which includes questions for grades 1 -12!

Download the worksheet

Every week from March to May, we went live on Facebook Live and talked whales! Each week, we hosted a fun and interactive live stream over a variety of whale topics. You can still watch them all up on our Youtube page or on our Facebook!

Topics have included baleen, species spotlights, photo identification of humpbacks, biomimicry, story book readings, crafts, mythbuster sessions, introduction to policy, and more!

For additional educational fun, you can download some correlating worksheets.

Whale Anatomy worksheet - to go with the April 28th Facebook Live stream
Book reading worksheet - to go with the April 30th Facebook Live stream

Follow WDC on social media for more fun facts, cute pictures and opportunities!

Shout Outs!

Our colleagues are also doing awesome and educational things during these times. We encourage you to check them out!

Atlantic Cup - Their kids page has a variety of activity pages for download.
Atlantic White Shark Conservancy - They did weekly educational live streams during the spring but you can still go back and watch them.
Various Audubon Organizations - They are offering maps of great trails to spend some time outdoors, Nature Bingo cards, or how to create bird food videos.
Center for Coastal Studies - They have a number of fun downloadable activities for kids.
New Bedford Whaling Museum - They are doing virtual tours of their museum.
New England Aquarium - They are doing virtual tours of their aquarium.
Oceans Initiative - They are doing a Facebook and Instagram "marine biology camp".
OrcaLab - They also have live cams. While not much may be happening at this time, they also have a highlights reel.
Whale Scout - They are doing daily educational videos of various topics.

Additional great opportunities from other organizations include:

The Home School Mom has a curriculum based around ocean and marine learning for K-12.
Explore.org has 42 different ocean-themed live streams.
Junior SeaDoctors - They have a great website full of other material for homeschooling.
Monterey Bay Aquarium - They are doing 10 different live cams including their sharks, sea otters, moon jellies and more.
National Marine Sanctuaries have virtual tours of the different national marine recognized sanctuaries.
Check out the Sant Ocean Hall while during a virtual tour of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.