Speaker 1: Hi, Rachel.
Speaker 2: Hi, Miss Penny.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to learn about manatees today.
Speaker 2: We're so excited to have you here.
Speaker 1: Great.
What is a manatee?
Speaker 2: A manatee is a marine mammal.
Marine means it spends its whole life in the water.
And a mammal is an animal that has hair on its body, breathes air does not lay eggs,
so they have live birth and drinks milk from its mom when it's a baby.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Manatees do all that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like we do.
We are mammals too.
Speaker 1: Where do they live?
Speaker 2: Anywhere where there's warm, shallow water with lots of food.
Speaker 1: What kind of food do they eat?
Speaker 2: Their favorite food is seagrass, but they'll any plants they can find.
This is our little manatee friend here, and we're going to learn about the different parts
of the manatee.
We'll start here at the tail.
The tail of a manatee is called a paddle, and they use that to swim in the water, so
they don't have legs like you and I do, to walk around on land.
Since they spend their whole life in the water, they have that strong tail to help them swim.
The next part of the manatee that we could talk about are the flippers.
Inside of these flippers, they have all the same bones that we have in our hand, but it's
kind of like wearing an oven mitt, where they only have control to bend it up and down.
They can use those flippers to help shovel food to their mouths when they eat.
And when they eat, they use their lips.
They have really cool lips that are split in the center.
Our lip is just one lip on top, they have a split lip that they can use to help grab
food, so their flippers and their lips help them grab food and seagrass and pull it up
to eat it.
Speaker 1: There is so much to learn about manatees.
Let's go.
Wow, this is amazing.
What is this?
Speaker 2: These are, believe it or not, life-sized manatees statues.
So, they're about 10 feet tall, which is as long as the average manatee, and they weigh
about a thousand pounds.
Speaker 1: Wow.
They must have to eat a lot if they get to be a thousand pounds.
Speaker 2: They do.
The average manatee is going to be to eat about a hundred pounds of seagrass every day.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
That's a lot of seagrass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the baby manatee is a life-size baby manatee.
So, babies are about four feet long when they're firstborn.
So, these help give you a scale of how big manatees really are.
And Miss Penny, do you notice anything about their flippers that might look kind of similar
to our hands?
Speaker 1: It looks like they have nails.
Speaker 2: Yes, manatees have fingernails on their flippers just like we have fingernails
on our fingers.
So, would you like to learn a little bit more about some of their bones?
Speaker 1: I'd love to.
Speaker 2: Let's go check it out.
Speaker 1: Let's go.
Wow.
KidVision kids, look at all the bones that manatee has.
Shiny, what do you have there?
A skeleton is a framework of bones that hold up bodies.
And look, manatees have some really big bones.
That must mean that they are pretty big animals.
Thank you, Shiny.
Do you want to find out more about the bones of the manatee?
Let's find out.
Speaker 2: All right, everyone.
We're going to look at some manatee bones.
What do you think this is?
Speaker 3: The rib cage.
Speaker 2: The rib cage.
This is a manatee's rib.
This is the same thing, this is another rib.
But look what we did.
What did we do to this one?
Speaker 3: You cut it.
Speaker 2: We cut it in half.
Do you want to know why?
Speaker 3: [inaudible 00:04:10].
Speaker 2: We cut it in half to show everyone that the bones of a manatee are totally solid.
Look at that.
There's bone all the way through.
Speaker 1: Are our bones solid?
Speaker 2: No.
Our bones have something called narrow inside of them.
It's a soft tissue.
Manatee bones are completely hard all the way through.
So, do you think that means that they're heavier or lighter than ours?
Speaker 3: Heavier.
Speaker 2: Heavier.
Do y'all want to hold a manatee bone?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: All right, everybody step back.
We're going to use both hands to hold it.
Speaker 3: Whoa.
Speaker 2: Whoa.
Who remembers what manatees eat?
Speaker 3: Seagrass.
Speaker 2: Seagrass.
Fantastic.
We have some fake seagrass here for us to play with.
Seagrass is a plant.
Speaker 3: [inaudible 00:05:10].
Speaker 2: Yes.
Seagrass is a plant that grows in the ocean.
So, manatees are something called herbivores.
That means they eat plants.
Do manatees have fingers?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Does everyone here have fingers?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: Everybody wiggle your fingers.
Everyone's going to put on an oven mitt, that's kind of like a manatee's flipper.
So, now that I put this flipper on, can I move my fingers?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Not really, right?
I can only go like this with them.
Try and grab a piece of seagrass.
Do you all know what this is?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: Garbage.
Speaker 2: It's garbage.
It's fishing line.
Pollution is any sort of garbage or trash that ends up in the environment or in the
water that could hurt these animals.
So, when manatees are eating all the seagrass, do you think that things like this could be
dangerous for them?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: [inaudible 00:06:19] tangled and- Speaker 2: Yeah, they could get tangled.
Speaker 3: [inaudible 00:06:22] accidentally eat it.
Speaker 2: Yes, they could get tangled in it and they could get stuck, or they might
accidentally eat it.
So, now we're going to put some of this pollution or trash into our seagrass.
We're going to play our activity again.
This time we're going to put our mittens on, and we're going to try and only take a piece
of seagrass without getting any of the trash.
All right?
Speaker 1: And so, I don't really know the difference between the pollution and the sea
grass.
I have to be very careful that I choose the right things and I don't know.
So, I might eat it by accident when I'm picking it up.
And then what's going to happen to me?
Speaker 3: You die.
Speaker 4: You get sick.
Speaker 1: I could get sick.
Okay, die or I could get sick.
So that's why people have to be very careful not to pollute the waters and the seagrass
where the manatees are.
Thank you so much for telling us about how manatees eat and how we have to be careful
about pollution because it's very dangerous for the manatees around us.
What else can we find out about manatees?
Speaker 2: Well, why don't we go learn what other kind of things manatees need to survive.
Speaker 1: A habitat is the natural home or environment of a plant or an animal.
A habitat contains all the things a plant or animal needs to survive, such as food,
water, space and shelter.
Estuaries are habitats for many types of marine life.
Speaker 2: Today we're going to use this sheet in order to pretend that it's all the manatees
habitat.
What are some of the threats to manatees that we've talked about?
What are some of the dangers to manatees?
Get along pretty well.
Speaker 3: Pollution.
Speaker 2: Pollution was one of them.
All this water, guess what happened?
All this habitat, some of it got polluted and it made it unsafe for the manatees to
live in.
Speaker 1: Oh no, what's going to happen to the manatees?
Speaker 2: And we're going to fold it in half because now there's not as much left because
some of it got polluted.
Now what else is a danger to manatees?
Speaker 3: Boats.
Speaker 2: Boats are dangerous to manatees.
They can get hit by boats and leave a scar.
So, some of this area is being used up by lots and lots of boats, so it's not safe for
the manatees.
So, now we're going to fold it in half again.
Perfect.
And sometimes habitat can get lost.
People like to build in these areas that the animals live.
So now, some of these areas got built up and we're going to fold it again.
Speaker 3: So it's tiny.
Speaker 2: Now it's tiny.
So, we're folding up the sheet to show that the habitat is being taken away from the manatees.
Not as many manatees fit in this habitat now, right?
What are some of the things we can do to help?
There's lots of things that everyone can do to help the manatees and the environment.
Speaker 3: Pick up garbage.
Speaker 2: Pick up garbage.
Speaker 3: And make it bigger.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're going to pick up garbage and make the habitat even bigger.
But we can do beach cleanups.
Pick up trash off of the waterways or the land.
You can also make sure you dispose of your trash properly.
Throw it away in the trash can when you're done.
And reduce, reuse, and recycle, right?
So, if you have a water bottle that's empty, don't throw it in the trash can.
Throw it in the recycling bin.
So, everybody watch out.
Let's unfold our sheet here.
We're going to recycle, and- Speaker 1: Now they're getting more room because
we're giving them more space.
We're picking up our garbage.
We're recycling our water bottles.
Speaker 2: So, we can take areas where there were things that people had built and we can
give them back to nature.
That's called restoration.
Restoring a habitat is when you bring it back to the animals.
So, let's unfold again.
We've restored some of that habitat and now we have all this space.
Speaker 1: KidVision kids, we can do these easy things every day to help keep them safe
and healthy.
Not only do these actions help manatees, but they also protect other animals and actually
the whole environment.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming.
I'm glad you learned a lot about manatees.
Speaker 1: Bye.
Speaker 3: Bye.