The Long Work of Raising Young: teacher key

Baby Animals, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. Milk that costs a whale mother a fifth of her body, a duckling that followed a scientist, and a panda mystery. A look at the evidence on how animals raise their young.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What happened to humpback mothers' body volume while they nursed in the drone study?
   • It grew
   • It shrank by about 17 percent (answer)
   • It stayed the same
2. Why do emperor penguins begin nesting in the dead of winter?
   • The chick hatches when food in the nearby ocean is greatest (answer)
   • Eggs freeze faster
   • Penguins are asleep
3. What do the Wytham records show about spring?
   • It has moved later
   • It has moved earlier (answer)
   • It is the same
4. How does incomplete metamorphosis differ from complete?
   • It skips the pupa stage (answer)
   • It has four stages
   • It has no eggs
5. What does the Audubon story show about scientific claims?
   • Even famous old reports need checking against the evidence (answer)
   • Famous claims are always right
   • Banding is new
6. What does precocial mean here?
   • Born well developed and ready to move (answer)
   • Born blind
   • Born in a pouch

Words

• altricial: helpless at birth
• precocial: ready at birth
• metamorphosis: body change
• monotremes: egg-laying mammals
• imprinting: early following
• marsupial: pouch mammal