Keep It Wild is back in the classroom!

Our animal-themed workshops are back in the classroom for the 2013-2014 school year, and our blog is back too, after a bit of a hiatus! Today the first workshop of the new school year was delivered, our Awesome Orcas workshop for grade 4's.

During one of our discussions about how orcas live and communicate within their family pods, several students referred to individual whales as people.  When India put a ban on the import and capture of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) for entertainment this past summer, they released a statement noting that dolphins [and whales] are highly intelligent and should be considered 'non-human persons'. The idea of a non-human person seems like a concept that scientists, lawyers and ethicists might be discussing, but it seems that nine-year-olds are also more than capable of considering the idea of a person who is of a different species.

The grade 4's also learned about orcas in captivity, including Kiska, an orca who has been living without the companionship of another whale since 2011 at Marineland in Niagra Falls.  Learn more about Kiska and Marineland through this series of  Toronto Star articles. 

Photograph of Kiska by JoAnne McArthur We Animals