1. ORCA’s Whale Education Month
Dolphins!
ORCA’s Whale Education Month

2. What Dolphin Is It?
Bottlenose dolphin

3. What Dolphin Is It?
Amazon River dolphin

4. What Dolphin Is It?
Orca or killer whale

6. How many different species of dolphin are there?
40!
How many species of dolphin can you write down in 30 seconds?

7. What do you call a dolphin’s mouth?
Activity Sheet 1: Dolphin Descriptions

8. Name the body part! Blubber Pectoral fin Tail Fluke Dorsal fin Beak
Blowhole
Eye
Dorsal fin
Blowhole
Beak
Blubber
Eye
Pectoral fin
Tail Fluke

9. Which dolphin is the largest?
Photo: Lauren Horncastle

10. Activity: Measuring Giants
How big are dolphins?
Activity: Measuring Giants

11. The orca or killer whale

12. Are dolphins a type of fish?
Activity Sheet 2: Compare and Contrast

13. What do dolphins eat? Cod and other large fish
Krill (small shrimp-like creatures)
Seaweed
Squid & Octopus
Sharks

14. Food Chain Game! Large squid Plankton (very tiny animals and plants)
Common dolphins
Small fish

15. Food Chain Game! Plankton (very tiny animals and plants) Small fish
Large squid
Common dolphins

16. Food Chain Game! Herring Bottlenose dolphin Orca The sun Tuna
Photo: Victoria Warren
Photo: Brittany Visona
The sun
Tuna
Plankton (very tiny animals and plants)

17. Food Chain Game! The sun Orca Plankton (very tiny animals and plants)
Bottlenose dolphin
Photo: Brittany Visona
Herring
Tuna
Photo: Victoria Warren

18. How do dolphins communicate?

19. A sound is produced by the phonic lips, and sent out in front of the animal…
…this then bounces off of an object, and returns to the lower jaw of the animal as an echo.

20. How do dolphins communicate?
Activity: Echolocation Game

21. Recommended videos to watch of dolphins feeding…
Bottlenose dolphin using echolocation to find octopus in the sea bed (from ARKive)
Bottlenose dolphins feeding (from BBC)
Bottlenose dolphins using mud ‘nets’ to feed (from BBC)

22. How are dolphins adapted to their habitat?
Photo: Lauren Horncastle

23. How are dolphins adapted to their habitat?
The cold water
Breathing
Communication
Body shape
Sleeping

24. How are dolphins adapted to their habitat?
The cold water – Blubber!
Breathing – Nostrils on top of head
Communication - Echolocation
Body shape - Streamlined
Sleeping – only half of its brain is asleep at a time

25. How do dolphins keep warm?
Activity: Blubber glove!

26. Threats facing dolphins
Despite dolphins being beautiful, intelligent and fascinating, there are lots of threats facing them in our oceans.
What threats can you think of?

27. Ask, What in this picture do no whales and dolphins eat
Ask, What in this picture do no whales and dolphins eat? Answer: Seaweed.
All whales and dolphins are carnivores - which means it eats other animals.
Everything else on this slide is eaten by a species of whale or dolphin except seaweed because it isn’t an animal.
Game: I am going to swap one of these pictures over, close your eyes and see if you can spot the difference. Okay eyes closed. Now open them. What has changed?
Answer: Jellyfish, click to show image of plastic bags in their place.
Whales and dolphins accidently eat plastic thinking they are jellyfish/squid. 100,000 marine mammals die every year from marine litter!

28. Where was this rubbish found?
Ask: Can you guess where we found all this rubbish?
Answer: inside a whale .
Problem:
Around the world, an estimated one million birds and 100,000 marine
mammals and sea turtles die each year from entanglement in plastics or plastic ingestion.
In 2002, a minke whale washed up on the northern French coast was found to have ingested almost 800g (at least 100) of plastic bags
Rubbish that we throw away can get washed down rivers and end up in the sea. Rubbish doesn’t belong in the sea and is very dangerous to the animals that live there. Our rubbish including, plastic bags, crisp packets and wrappers can become tangled around animals and cause painful injuries by digging in to the skin. Whales and dolphins and other animals that live in the sea often get confused by our rubbish, and think it is food! Some animal’s stomachs are so full of rubbish they can no longer fit in any real food. These animals get hungry and weak, can become very poorly and can even die.
By reducing how much rubbish gets into the sea we can save marine animals!

29. Activity Sheet 3: Make one small change
How can we help?
Activity Sheet 3: Make one small change

30. Thank you for taking part in ORCA’s Whale Education Month!
Photo: Mark Carwardine