Sleeping With Sharks

Posted by Laura on July 4th, 2011

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Blacktip Reef Shark on Bed Sheet

When you can’t fall asleep at night, do you count sharks? With over 450 kinds of sharks (the exact number is debated – but there are definitely a lot), there are really a lot of choices to help you fall lazily into a dreamy, peaceful sleep. From the small epaulette shark, which lives in the shallows, walks on its fins and sucks up worms . . . to the biggest fish in the ocean, the whale shark. The whale shark is huge, but it’s a peaceful animal that cruises around filtering the water for zooplankton.

This picture shows a twin-bed sheet, decorated with a life-size version of a black-tip reef shark (about 5.5 feet long). The shark was colored with fabric markers by 4th and 5th graders at the Portland Saturday Academy Shark Science class.

Blacktip Reef Shark Face

I taught the class for a week, and we delved into the science of these ancient and powerful predators – from investigating shark teeth to touching shark skin to watching The Shark Riddle, our latest children’s film. After a week of absorbing the great and strange and marvelous world of sharks, the students were charged with creating an outreach piece about sharks. What did they want to say about sharks? What did they think kids their age should know about sharks? The students collaborated to create this mural, and then they wrote facts about sharks on the bottom. Here are some of the highlighted facts:

Shark Facts from Students

Over 100 million sharks were killed by people last year.

On average, less than 10 people are killed by sharks each year.

Sharks can lose up to 30,o00 teeth in a lifetime!

We should protect sharks not kill them.

Sharks have 5 to 7 gill slits on the sides of their heads.

Shark skeletons are made of cartilage.

Sharks are fish.

Sharks have been around since before dinosaurs.

The whale shark, the biggest fish in the ocean has very tiny teeth.

The basking shark is the second biggest shark in the ocean.

Sharks do not kill people on purpose.

Great white sharks eat sea lions because they love the taste of blubber.

There are over 400 different kinds of sharks.

Shark Facts from Students in Shark Science Class

Robert and I will share this mural with other students, as we travel around the country showing The Shark Riddle at schools and museums. If you want to make your own shark mural, get an old sheet. Trace the shape of a shark on it, and start coloring with fabric markers. It’s lots of fun! And if I may say so, I would have liked to have a shark sheet on my bed as a kid.