Look Closer 8. SCIENCE FirstNews Issue 379 20th - 26th Sept 2013 Surprise under the sea Getty Tree rings A blue whale comes to the surface off the coast of Sri Lanka whale experts have shown that examining the ear wax of some species can tell us a lot more about these huge creatures than other scientific methods. It might sound like an odd thing to study, but the ear wax of certain baleen whales stores a huge amount of information. Baleen whales are species that filter food from the water rather than use teeth to eat. The blue whale is one example. After a blue whale died when it hit a ship off the coast of California, scientists turned the unfortunate accident into a chance to carry out some research. It has been known for a long time that the ear wax of baleen whales builds up in layers over time. It is even possible to tell the age of a whale using these layers, like the rings of a tree. However, this new study also found that the plugs of wax contained a lot of information about the levels of hormones and pollutants in the whale s body over its lifetime. The 25.4cm-long wax plug showed how the levels of pollutants like pesticides and mercury changed during the whale s life. The researchers say this method is easier and cheaper than spending weeks on ships trying to get samples from whales. It also provides data about lots of substances at the same time, so could help to answer complicated questions about whales lives and the effects that pollution has on them. Glossary: tree rings - the pattern of circles on a cut tree trunk (see photo) which can be used to find out the age of a tree. The circles are made by the growth of new wood. Each year, a tree grows new wood under the bark. This makes a new circle. pollutants - substances which get into an environment and have a bad effect on the animals or plants living in it. In this article, examples of pollutants are pesticides and mercury. hormones - Chemicals made by an animal s body which carry messages to other parts of the body and cause a change to happen. pesticides - Any substance used to kill pests. For example, pesticides are sprayed on to crops to kill insects that eat them. Unfortunately some pesticides are toxic to humans and other animals. mercury - A heavy, silvery liquid metal which is very poisonous. In the past it was used in thermometers and it is still used in some batteries.
Look Closer SCIENCE: Surprise under the sea Carefully read Surprise under the sea from Science and then answer the questions below. Can you - Find the facts? Interpret the information? Work out why the journalist wrote and presented the story in the way that they did? Q1) Which part of a blue whale have scientists been looking at, and how long is it? (AF3) Q2) What gave scientists the opportunity to study the blue whale so closely? (AF2) Q3) Why is the ear wax of a blue whale like the rings of a tree? (AF3) Q4) The scientists found out that a whale s ear wax also contains lots of other information. What other information does it record about the whale? (AF2) Q5) Why do you think the journalist has called this article Surprise under the sea. (AF3) Q6) Early in the article, the journalist uses some other words which show that studying ear wax is probably surprising to the reader. What are they? (AF3) Q7) True or false? AF2) The whale in the photograph is pictured off the coast of Australia. Mercury is a type of pollution. Baleen whales eat by filtering food from the water. The whale is born with a very long plug of ear wax. Next, the scientists are going to study human ear wax, to see if it holds the same information. Q8) Write down three reasons why it is good to learn about whales by studying the animal s ear wax. (AF3) Q9) Why do you think this article has been included in the Science section rather than the Animal News section of the newspaper? (AF2) Q10) Newspaper articles are usually written with a similar structure. They might have a headline, a lead paragraph, a photograph and a caption. The journalist uses each part to do a different job. What is the purpose of these parts of a newspaper article? (AF6) Headline Lead paragraph (the first paragraph, in bold text) Photograph Caption This illustrates the article and helps tell the story in a visual way. The journalist may use it to explain something that is hard to do in words what someone looks like, for example. Q11) Why is looking at a whale s ear wax a bit like reading its diary? (AF6)
Look Closer SCIENCE: Surprise under the sea Can you: Find the facts? Interpret the information? Work out why the journalist wrote and presented the story in the way that they did? Carefully read Surprise under the sea from Science and then answer the questions below: Q1) Which part of a blue whale have scientists been looking at, and how long is it? (AF3) The part:... The length:... Q2) What gave scientists the opportunity to study the blue whale so closely? (AF2).. Q3) Why is the ear wax of a blue whale like the rings of a tree? (AF3)... Q4) The scientists found out that a whale s ear wax also contains lots of other information. What other information does it record about the whale? (AF2).... Q5) Why do you think the journalist has called this article surprise under the sea? (AF3).....
Q6) Early in the article, the journalist uses some other words which show that studying ear wax is probably surprising to the reader. What are they? (AF3) Q7) True or False? (AF2) The whale in the photograph is pictured off the coast of Australia. Mercury is a type of pollution. Baleen whales eat by filtering food from the water. The whale is born with a very long plug of ear wax. Next, the scientists are going to study human ear wax, to see if it holds the same information. Q8) Write down three reasons why it is good to learn about whales by studying the animal s ear wax. (AF3) Q9) Why do you think this article has been included in the Science section rather than the Animal News section of the newspaper? (AF3)
Q10) Newspaper articles are usually written with a similar structure. They might have a headline, a lead paragraph, a photograph and a caption. The journalist uses each part to do a different job. What is the purpose of these parts of a newspaper article? (AF6) Headline Lead paragraph (the first paragraph, in bold text) Photograph Caption This illustrates the article and helps tell the story in a visual way. The journalist may use it to explain something that is hard to do in words what someone looks like, for example. Q11) Why is looking at a whale s ear wax a bit like reading its diary? Extension Activities A) Blue Whales Blue whales are the biggest mammal on Earth. In fact, they are the largest known animal to have ever lived on the planet. What can you find out about this fascinating animal? Write up your research in one of these ways: as a fact file, using a bullet-pointed list or as a Special Report (see page 18 for an example), using sub-headings. Here are two useful websites to help you get started: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/blue_whale http://kids.nationalgeographic.co.uk/kids/animals/creaturefeature/blue-whales B) Front Page Science One of the jobs of a newspaper editor is to choose which story to put on the front page. Look through the other articles on the Science page of First News. If you were the editor and wanted to have a science article on the front page, which of these articles would you choose? Why have you made this choice? Would you change the headline?
The teacher answers are intended to provide a guide as to the AF strand of the question and possible responses from pupils working at different levels. In the level 4/5 answers we try to provide the most complete answer possible in order to provide teaching points when discussing the answers with pupils. 1a) Which part of a blue whale have scientists been looking at, and how long is it? AF2 - understand, describe, select, retrieve information, events or ideas from texts and use quotation and reference to the text L3 identifying obvious points The part: ear wax Its length: 25.4 cm 2) What gave scientists the opportunity to study the blue whale so closely? AF3 deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts L3 simple inference A whale was killed L4/5 - more complex inference with explanation Sadly, a whale was killed by a ship and the scientists decided use this as an opportunity to learn about the animal. 3) Why is the ear wax of a blue whale like the rings of a tree? AF3 deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts L3 simple inference Because it has layers/rings It can be used to tell how old the whale is. L4/5 - more complex inference with explanation Both the rings of a tree and whale s ear wax can be used to tell the age of the tree or whale. Both build up in layers over time. 4) The scientists found out that a whale s ear wax also contains lots of other information. What other information does it record about the whale? AF2 - understand, describe, select, retrieve information, events or ideas from texts and use quotation and reference to the text L3 identifying obvious points Its age pollutants/hormones/pesticides/mercury L4 identifying relevant points It gives information on the levels of hormones and pollutants in the whale s body over it s lifetime. It shows how the levels of these substances changed during its life. Examples of the pollutants it records are pesticides and mercury. 5) Why do you think the journalist has called this article surprise under the sea AF6 identify and comment on writers purposes and viewpoints, and the overall effect of the text on the reader L3 simple understanding of the journalist s purpose Because ear wax is a really weird thing to be looking at. Because they were surprised to find out about the ear wax. Because it sounds nice. L4/5 - main purpose identified with comment on overall effect on reader The headline gives a clue what the story is about. The journalist has used the word surprise to show that most readers will find this subject quite surprising, and obviously the whale lives in the sea so the story is about a surprise under the sea. The journalist doesn t say exactly what the surprise is, so he or she may have chosen this headline to create a bit of mystery and hope that readers will want to find out what the mystery is by reading on. The journalist has used alliteration to give the headline an appealing sound pattern. 6) Early in the article, the journalist uses some other words which show that studying ear wax is probably surprising to the reader. What are they? AF5 explain and comment on the writer s uses of language, including grammatical and literary features at word and sentence level L3 a few basic features of writer s use of language identified It might sound like an odd thing to study
7) True or false? AF2 - understand, describe, select, retrieve information, events or ideas from texts and use quotation and reference to the text L3 identifying obvious points L4 identifying relevant points The whale in the photograph is pictured off the coast of Australia. - F Mercury is a type of pollution.- T Baleen whales eat by filtering food from the water. - T The whale is born with a very long plug of ear wax. - F Next, the scientists are going to study human ear wax, to see if it holds the same information. - F 8) Write down three reasons why it is good to learn about whales by studying the animal s ear wax. AF3 deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts L3 simple inference Because you can find out their age. It tells you lots of things. Because we need to look after whales. L4/5 - more complex inference with explanation Because it is easier and cheaper to look at the ear wax than to try and get samples from whales. The ear wax gives scientists a great deal of information about all sorts of different substances all at the same time. The ear wax shows how substances have changed over the whale s lifetime. All this information might help people understand whales and look after them better in the future. 9) Why do you think this article has been included in the Science section rather than the Animal News section of the newspaper? AF7 relate texts to their social, cultural and historical traditions L3 - recognition of some features Because it s about science L4/5 - common features identified with simple comment/some explanation This article is about an animal, so could have been included in Animal News, but most of the article is about the science that has been used to study the ear wax and find out about the whale. This makes it more suited to the Science page than Animals News. It is about a new study written by scientists. Scientific reports are usually covered in the Science page. 10) Newspaper articles are usually written with a similar structure. They might have a headline, a lead paragraph, a photograph and a caption. The journalist uses each part to do a different job. What is the purpose of these parts of a newspaper article? AF6 identify and comment on writers purposes and viewpoints, and the overall effect of the text on the reader L3 simple understanding of the journalist s purpose Headline Lead paragraph (the first paragraph, in bold text) Photograph Caption - This tells you what the story is about. - This is the name of the story. - This tells you the first bit of the story. - This tells you a bit more about the story. This illustrates the article and helps tell the story in a visual way. The journalist may use it to explain something that is hard to do in words what someone looks like, for example. - This goes with the photo - This tells you what the photo is about.
LOOK CLOSER: 13th - 19th September 2013 L4/5 - main purpose identified with comment on overall effect on reader Headline Lead paragraph (the first paragraph, in bold text) Photograph Caption - This gives the reader a clue what the story is about. - The journalist often uses it to grab the attention of the reader and encourage them to read more. - The first paragraph explains what the story is about in one or two sentences. - The journalist uses this to explain the key facts, such as who, what, why, when & how. - The reader can read this paragraph to understand what the story is about and decide whether to read the full article, or not. This illustrates the article and helps tell the story in a visual way. The journalist may use it to explain something that is hard to do in words what someone looks like, for example. - These words explain what the photo is about. The journalist may use it to say where the photo has been taken, to repeat a key fact, to ask a question or tell a joke. 11) Why is a looking at a whale s ear wax a bit like reading its diary? AF3 deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts L3 simple inference Because it gives you lots of information about the whale. Because it tells you its story. Because it tells you how old it is. L4/5 - more complex inference with explanation A whale s ear wax is a bit like reading a whale s diary because it gives information about what the whale has been doing over time over the whole of it s life. It tells you what has been going on inside the whale (by looking at its hormones). It tells you what the whale has come across in the ocean for example, what sorts of pollution it has come across in its life. Just like a diary, the ear wax is a record of what the whale has been up to, which can be read by people like scientists.