Seal Sitters in the classroom

Seattle’s Beacon Hill International School offers an after-school enrichment program for its students.  In March, the school invited Seal Sitters to bring our “stuff” for a fun afternoon with third- through fifth-graders.

Volunteers Brittany, Kristen K, Dave D, Suzanne and Julia filled a classroom with displays and a video.  They set up a perimeter of caution tape surrounding a toy seal pup – just as Seal Sitters responders would do for a real marine mammal. 

Harbor seal pelt and skull from Seal Sitters educational collections.

The students enjoyed being able to touch a sea otter pelt, a harbor seal skull and baleen from a gray whale.  First Responder Brittany reported:

“Some of the kids had never seen a seal. It was rewarding to be able to teach them and to see them so excited about the marine environment.”

Armed with new vocabulary words like rookery, weaner and blubber, these students will be ready for their first encounters with marine mammals. 

Photo courtesy of Julia S.

Seal Sitters thanks Harriet Morton of Invest in Youth for inviting Seal Sitters to Beacon Hill.  If you are interested in having Seal Sitters volunteers speak to your group about the marine mammal stranding network, contact us at connect@SealSitters.org.