On Friday, April 24, 2015, the Science Center supported the efforts of two great teams working together for the first time, educators from Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and the Emilson YMCA Aquatics Department. The fit was just perfect!
The event featured two spaces: the gym and the pool. In the old gymnastics area, currently being reconfigured, Stellwagen’s staff and volunteers inflated Lefty the Whale, a representative northern humpback, inviting youngsters inside to understand how a whale lives.
Around the room were several other stations where kids “dove” for facts about whales, colored, read books about whales and tried an experiment focused on marine debris and the problems it causes for the environment.
Meanwhile, in the pool, kids learned the difference between swimming like fish and swimming like mammals; dove like whales to scare up food from the seafloor; avoided lobster trap lines in their “migration” from the Dominican Republic to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, off Massachusetts; and avoided contact with the many passing ships on the surface.
So yes, there was a whale at the Y! And hopefully not for the last time.