A whale of a tale – Alcott Elementary teams up with museum to learn more about whales

Alcott Elementary School partnered with a regional museum to educate students on whales and their place in our ecosystem. Before a visit to the school from the curator of The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, principal Jon Hedin helped narrow down names for the school’s new orca sculpture. The names were chosen based on famous female orcas in or around the Puget Sound. After the list was narrowed down, students and staff were welcomed to vote on the name. By the end of the voting, the school had decided to name their orca sculpture Olympia. Below is a little history about the orca whale the sculpture was named after:

Olympia (L-32) was named in 1983 as part of a contest in Victoria, B.C. to give names to all the whales in L pod. This contest was part of a campaign to stop a Canadian permit which would have allowed capture of the orcas for public display. Partly as a result of this effort, these whales are now protected from further captures in both the U.S. and Canada. 

After the sculpture was named, third grade students and a handful of fourth and fifth graders were visited by the curator of the The Whale Museum. The museum worked with various classrooms on orca conservation lessons. Those lessons included a whale adoption component with one class naming their whale Kiki. Each student in the class received their very own whale adoption certificate.