She Wasn't Real Until She Had a Name

Clara didn't always have a name.

For years, she was just "the whale." A 56-foot inflatable gray whale that showed up in school gyms and library parking lots across Wisconsin, impressed everyone, and then deflated into a bag in the back of a trailer. She was a prop. A very large, very effective prop.

That changed in February.

As part of a naming contest through the Prairie Lakes Library System, a seven-year-old girl named Harper from Edgerton submitted the winning name: Clara. From that moment on, we stopped calling her "the whale." And from that moment on, kids started hugging her nose.

I don't think that's a coincidence.

Clara and 300 kids at East Elementary in Jefferson, WI

Clara looming large in the gym at Three Lakes School District

A kid hugs Clara's nose during a school visit

Creating a Character

Something shifts when you give something a name. Harper probably didn't know she was doing anything more than winning a contest. But what she actually did was give 14,000 people in 2026 alone a relationship to step into. You don't hug a prop. You hug Clara. This is a case study in the making.

Once she had a name, she started developing a personality to go with it. On Instagram, Clara narrates her own adventures in first person. She's shy about her size. She's curious about the fossils I bring along. She gets nervous before big crowds and then surprised by how much she loves them. She is, for lack of a better word, a character.

The Migration Map started the same way. As Clara visited more communities across Wisconsin in 2026, I started adding each stop to a living Google map, with a one-liner written in Clara's voice. Not Dave's voice. Clara's. Shy, observant, a little overwhelmed by all the people who wanted to say hello.

You can explore the full map here: Clara's 2026 Migration Map

Every pin is a school, a library, a community that invited a whale into their space and left changed in some small way. At least that's how Clara would tell it.

East Elementary and the Dancing Boy

There's a moment from East Elementary in Jefferson, WI that I keep coming back to.

I was teaching. Clara was inflated and sitting in the middle of the gym, behind the kids, which means she had an excellent view to everything that happened. At some point during the lesson, one kid just started dancing. Not because anyone told him to. Not as part of the program. Just because the moment got to him and his body didn't know what else to do with it.

I wrote about it here: (The View from the Ceiling). Clara saw the whole thing. I'm convinced she loved it.

That's the kind of school assembly moment you can't manufacture. You can plan a great program, bring in real fossils, inflate a life-size whale in front of 300 kids, talk about how sperm whales name their babies and how a bowhead whale lived for 200 years with a Civil War-era harpoon in its neck. You can do all of that and create the conditions for something real to happen. But the dancing is the kid's contribution. That's theirs.

Clara collects those moments. Every stop on the map is one of them.

Clara the whale at Houser YMCA in Onalaska where 1,200 people showed up

Dave and Clara in Wautoma with 300 kids

Clara sits in front of 300 people at a family night event in Wausau

What can Clara do for Your Kids?

If you've been wondering what a hands-on science assembly looks like for your school or library, the map is a good place to start. Follow Clara's route across Wisconsin. Read her one-liners. See the communities that invited her in. This is seriously one of the coolest school assembly ideas in Wisconsin.

Then think about what your kids would do if a 56-foot whale showed up in their gym.

My guess is at least one of them would dance.

Forest Whales brings hands-on marine science and paleontology programming to K-8 schools, libraries, and community events across Wisconsin and the Midwest. If you're looking for a unique school assembly idea or science program, reach out at forestwhales.com.