How to Get the Most Out of Your Forest Whales Program
- Dave Daniels
- 12 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Clara the whale is coming to your school. You have the date on the calendar, the gymnasium reserved, and the permission slips are probably already drafted. But here is something worth knowing before she arrives: the program your students experience on the day Clara inflates in your gym is only part of what Forest Whales offers.
The schools that get the most out of a Forest Whales visit are the ones that treat it as an event with a beginning, a middle, and an end — not just a single day on the schedule. Here is how to do that.
Before Clara Arrives
About one month before your program date, you will receive the first of three pre-visit emails from Forest Whales. Over the following weeks, leading up to Clara's arrival, you will receive a complete set of materials designed to prepare your students for what they are about to experience.
These include art project ideas that connect marine science and paleontology to creative expression, classroom activities built around the program content, a guide to fossil hunting in Wisconsin, a detailed teacher guide that lists every specimen and artifact Clara brings to your school along with expanded scientific context beyond what students will hear during the program, and a student guide featuring coloring pages and reflection questions like listing three uses for a narwhal's tusk or drawing the inside of Clara the whale.
The single best pre-visit activity is one of my personal favorites: measuring a blue whale. Blue whales are the largest animals that have ever lived on Earth, reaching lengths of up to 100 feet. Take your students outside to a parking lot or playground with a tape measure and mark out 100 feet on the ground. We list all of the dimensions for you. Let them walk it. Let them stand at one end and try to see the other. Then tell them that Clara, at 56 feet, is a gray whale, which is smaller than a blue whale, but still longer than most school buses.
By the time Clara arrives, your students will already have a physical, visceral understanding of what whale size actually means. That context makes everything that happens inside the gymnasium land differently.
The key is to actually use these materials. They arrive in your inbox in three separate emails, spaced about two weeks apart, so you are never overwhelmed with attachments all at once. Each one is designed to fit into your existing schedule without requiring a major curriculum overhaul. A single class period spent on the blue whale measurement activity or the student guide questions is enough to prime your students for an extraordinary day.
During the Program
On the day of the visit, your job is simpler than you might think: stay curious alongside your students.
The Forest Whales program is fully presenter-led. You do not need to prepare talking points or manage the content. But the teachers who get the most out of the day are the ones who engage alongside their students by asking follow-up questions, noting which concepts seem to spark the most curiosity in individual kids, and paying attention to the moments that genuinely surprise the room.
Those moments are your curriculum gold. A student who cannot stop asking about Megalodon teeth is telling you something about where their curiosity lives. A kid who wants to hold every fossil twice is showing you a learning style that a worksheet never would have revealed.
Watch for those moments. Write them down if you can. They will inform how you use the post-visit materials.
After Clara Heads Down the Road
The program does not end when Clara deflates and the trailer pulls out of the parking lot. Forest Whales provides a certificate of completion for every student, something tangible that teachers can print and present, that kids can take home, and that signals to families that something meaningful happened at school that day.
But the deeper follow-up lives in the teacher guide. Every specimen and artifact from the program is documented there, with expanded scientific context that goes beyond what students heard during the presentations. This is the resource that lets a fourth grade teacher spend the following week reinforcing concepts about whale evolution, ocean ecosystems, or the fossil record, using the emotional memory of touching an orca skull as the anchor for everything that comes after.
The Whale Mail newsletter, published monthly by Forest Whales, is another ongoing resource for classrooms that want to stay connected to marine science and paleontology throughout the year. Back issues are available at forestwhales.com/whalemail and cover topics ranging from gray whale migration to prehistoric sea creatures to fossil hunting in the Midwest.
Why This All Matters
A Forest Whales program is an investment. For most schools, it represents a meaningful line item in an enrichment budget, often funded by a PTA, a local business sponsor, or a grant. Getting the full value of that investment means treating the program as more than a single day of excitement.
The schools that do this well send students home with questions they did not have when they woke up that morning. They spend the following week in classrooms where kids are still talking about shark teeth and narwhal tusks. They have teachers who pull out the teacher guide three months later when a relevant concept comes up in science class.
That is what curiosity looks like when it takes root. And that is what the pre-visit materials, the program itself, the certificate of completion, and the ongoing resources are all designed to support.
Clara is coming. Make the most of it.
For questions about pre-visit materials or to book a Forest Whales program for your school or library, visit forestwhales.com or contact Dave Daniels at dave@forestwhales.com or 715-303-9407.
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