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An enormous great white shark spotted Tuesday afternoon in Orchards caused quite a ruckus.
The sea creature elicited excited chatter from the third- and fourth-graders at Orchards Elementary School as Timmy, a life-size plastic shark, was inflated to his full length of 19 feet in the school gym.
The Sense-ational Sharks program from the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Ore., visited Orchards as part of the aquarium’s outreach to schools in Southwest Washington, Oregon and Northern California. It was the first time the aquarium exhibit had visited the school.
“We jumped right on it,” said Principal Elizabeth Brawley, who watched the presentation with her students.
After students had settled crisscross applesauce on the gym floor, Jenni Remillard, an education specialist with the aquarium, asked, “What do you think of when you think of sharks?”
“They’re cool and dangerous,” one student offered.
Another student hummed, “Da-da!” — the opening measure of the musical score for the movie “Jaws.”
The traveling program helped students separate shark fact from fiction and understand how sharks are adapted for the life of an ocean predator.
The students learned about sharks by watching video footage of sharks eating and swimming, hearing about how the aquarium staff cares for sharks and through guessing games.
One student asked: How does the staff clean the 30-foot-deep shark tank? The sharks remain in the tank while divers don scuba gear to scrub the glass tank alongside them, Remillard said.
Do all sharks have sharp teeth? Although the great white shark has serrated teeth like a kitchen knife to cut its prey, some sharks, such as the whale shark, the largest shark, open their mouths wide to feed on fish eggs, plankton and other small things. The students sat riveted.
What are the odds of being attacked by a shark? People have better odds of winning an Olympic medal (1:600,000) or being struck by lightning (1:576,000) than being attacked by a shark (1:11.5 million).
Kathleen Calvert, a third-grade teacher, said her class had been learning about the life cycles of animals and adaptations so that learning about sharks was a good fit for her students.
After the presentation, antsy students lined up on either side of a table, where shark artifacts were displayed, to have a chance to touch real and model shark skin, teeth, jawbones, a heart and more.
A girl ran her fingers over the jaw of a hammerhead shark. A boy felt the serrated edges of a great white’s tooth.
Among the biggest hits was the jar of shark eyeballs floating in a yellowish solution.
“What’s that?” one boy asked, pointing to the jar.
“That’s the eyeballs!” another answered.
“Whoa! Shark eyes? Is this real?”
The kid nodded.
“Holy crap!”
