Schluter Elementary students’ letters about orcas reach French Minister

Student voices matter!

This year, Schluter Elementary School fourth graders learned about orcas and their lives in captivity versus in the wild. 

When Rachel Friend, fourth grade teacher at Schluter, heard about Wikie and Keijo, a mother and son pair of orcas living in the south of France that might be sent to a marine park in Japan, she saw a unique learning opportunity for her students.

Students in Ms. Friend’s and Ms. Leslie Anderson’s classes discovered the decision for Wikie and Keijo’s fate was in the hands of Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France’s Minister of Ecological Transition, Energy, Climate and Risk Prevention. Their teachers encouraged them to write letters and express their desire for the Minister to send the orcas to a whale sanctuary instead of the marine park in Japan.

“Our classroom turned into a little newsroom the day we wrote the letters,” said Ms. Friend. “We were brainstorming reasons on the board and calling out information we had found to share with each other. It was really inspiring to see!”

Students were encouraged to make their case using facts they had learned about orcas in class.

In her letter, Ellison explained the orcas “will be able to chase birds and explore the seafloor” in the sanctuary. 

Charlotte noted “the area they would be in would be 300x bigger than the tank in Japan,” and “it would let them actually be real whales.”

Many students also thanked the French Minister for her previous decision to ban the captivity of whales in France. Parker wrote, “It is a big step for saving orcas and whales across the world.”

The students' voices did not go unheard! On November 25, Mme Pannier-Runacher posted on her Instagram that she opposed the move to Japan and shared a drawing from one of the Schluter Spurs!