WASINGTON - Matt Weeks is a traveling science educator for the Chewonki Foundation. On Saturday evening, November 12, he visited the Gibbs Library in Washington to help participants assemble a skeleton of a 16-foot Pilot whale.

The program was not just about putting together whale bones, but an evening of education about skeletons in general and how they apply not only to other animals, but humans, too.

Weeks said this was the foundation's skeleton program. The foundation has programs that focuses on mammals, some that focus on reptiles, or live owls.

"The skeleton program focuses on the functions of the skeleton for any animal that has one," he said. "It culminates with the assembling of a skeleton, most often a Pilot whale skeleton and we have in the past done a black bear skeleton as well."

Weeks has been doing this program for five years and lives in Brunswick.

Hazel Kopishke is the children's programming chair at Gibbs Library. As we spoke before the event got underway, I asked her where the whale was.

"It's in all those containers that Matt is bringing in," she said.

She said the library has been doing programs like this for quite a few years.

As both adults and children assembled in the room, the kids were highly inquisitive about the skeletons Weeks was laying out, asking question after question.

Weeks' lecture focused on the five main reasons we have a skeleton.

• Your skeleton gives you shape.
• Protects your vital organs.
• Manufactures blood cells.
• Helps you survive in your element.
• A skeleton allows different types of movement.

After the brief lecture the adults and kids were ready to form three groups on the floor and arrange the bones in what they thought the order might be for assembly.

There were 48 bones to be sorted for the Pilot whale's spine.

The whale had been donated to the foundation by the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. Weeks had no idea how old it might be, but one woman in attendance said she remembered a Pilot whale skeleton at the college maybe 30 years ago.

Pilot whales get their name because there is one whale of the pod who is appointed, elected, no one really knows how they get the position, but that one whale is the pilot and all the other whales follow it.

The bones were divided into three groups. The head section, the mid section and the tail section.

Weeks floated between the three groups asking questions about the placement and offering helpful hints to get the bones in the right order.

When he was satisfied all was in order the kids helped him assemble the whole skeleton onto a steel frame and when it was all right he added the head to complete the puzzle of the whale bones.

Weeks said the skeleton was built in a really good amount of time.

"I've been to schools where it was more of an exercise in teamwork and how to build a team, "he said. "This was good and everyone worked together. Sometimes you can have a little civil discourse on where and what order a bone can go in, but these people were great."

To learn more about the Chewonki Foundation and their programs visit: http://www.chewonki.org/tnhp/