Orcas are those beautiful black and white whales that we also call killer whales. They don’t hurt people, but for the past few years, some orcas have been sinking boats and no one is sure why. Scientists think there are at least 50,000 orcas. As the biggest members of the dolphin family, they can stretch 26 feet long and weigh more than 6 1/2 tons. Even that “little” fin on their back is 6 feet tall. Do the math to find out how tiny you are compared to an orca!
Lace up: Orcas are black and white. Can you look around and find 2 things that are both black and white?
Jog: If you have 2 pet orcas and 3 pet dolphins, how many splashy pets do you have?
Sprint: An orca’s dorsal fin (on its back) stands 6 feet tall. How much taller than you is that? Find out your height in feet!
Hurdle: If there are 25,000 orcas in the Antarctic, 10,000 in the Pacific, and 1,000 in the Atlantic, how many orcas is that? (Hint if needed: Instead of thousands, you can think of it as 25 chunks, 10 chunks and 1 chunk, and add them before turning into thousands.)
High Jump: How many 26-foot-long orcas would have to line up end to end to stretch 78 feet?
Pole Vault: If America’s (nearly) 350 million people share the world’s 50,000 orcas as pets equally, how many share each orca? (Hint if needed: What if it were just 50 million people? And how does this answer differ?)
Answers:
Lace up: Items might include the pages of a book, a newspaper, sneakers or socks.
Jog: 5 splashy pets.
Sprint: Different for everyone…subtract your height in feet from 6.
Hurdle: 36,000 orcas.
High Jump: 3 orcas.
Pole Vault: 7,000 people for each orca. If there were 50 million people (50,000,000), you’d have 1,000 people on each. But we’re talking about 350 million people, which is 7 times as much, so you need 7 times as many people sharing each one.
