Sleeping on the Job: teacher key

How Animals Sleep, grade 7 edition, written for 7th grade. Birds sleep in the air, seals nap on deep dives and whales float upright. See how animals fit sleep into lives where staying alert matters.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. How did scientists find out if frigatebirds sleep in flight?
   • They watched from a boat
   • They attached a small recorder to the head that registered EEG activity (answer)
   • They counted nests
2. How much did frigatebirds sleep in flight?
   • About 0.69 hours a day (answer)
   • About 10 hours a day
   • None at all
3. Why did researchers test the sperm whales with a boat?
   • Looking asleep is not the same as being asleep, so they checked whether the whales reacted (answer)
   • They wanted to take the whales home
   • Whales cannot be seen from shore
4. How are ground squirrels different from bears in hibernation?
   • They go much deeper, cutting metabolic rate by up to 90 percent (answer)
   • They do not rest at all
   • They keep warmer
5. Why is the jellyfish finding surprising?
   • Jellyfish live in lakes
   • Jellyfish have no centralized nervous system but meet the criteria for a sleeplike state (answer)
   • Jellyfish never move
6. What does metabolism mean here?
   • Energy use (answer)
   • Eye color
   • Bone size

Words

• unihemispheric: one half-brain
• torpor: deep rest
• matriarchs: lead females
• metabolism: body's energy use