Science on Screen®: Chewonki’s Fins & Flippers & the Film “Whale Rider”

Presentation: Chewonki's Fins & Flippers
Film: Whale Rider
Saturday, June 12th
FREE Event for the Entire Family
 

4:30-5:30pm: Chewonki's Fins & Flippers presentation will examine the four major groups of marine mammals, their special adaptations for keeping warm, finding food, and breathing air in the marine environment, and the many threats they face. Participants will get to see a pilot whale skeleton put together by Chewonki staff plus large humpback and fin whale bones, including a rib that is as tall as a human!. Chewonki presenters will also teach us about the form and function of cetacean bodies and talk a bit about behavior and vocalizations of cetaceans and pinnipeds.
 

5:30-6:00pm: Families can take a break to run around outside and get some food & drink before the film starts. The Gem will have the pizza oven on!
 

6:00-7:45pm: Film: Whale Rider (Rated PG-13 for momentary drug reference and brief language) Only males are allowed to ascend to chiefdom in a Maori tribe in New Zealand. This ancient custom is upset when the child selected to be the next chief dies at birth. However his twin sister, Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes), survives. At age 12, she enlists the help of her grandmother (Vicky Haughton) and the training of her uncle (Grant Roa) to claim her birthright. But to break with convention, she’ll have to do the impossible: win over her ultra-traditional grandfather (Rawiri Paratene). 

A huge thank you to Science on Screen, an initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE, with major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION.