A lot of people ask me why I like wildlife? My answer is so simple… there is always more to learn. Whether you read about plants and animals, or you are out in the field conducting a scientific study, you will always be learning more and more. There are so many species in the world, no one can know everything about all of them, but it’s fun to keep finding out mind blowing tidbits. These tidbits inspire me to create activities to encourage people to explore wildlife on their own. Everyone has that love of animals from their childhood in them, sometimes it just needs to be reignited.
Recently I had the opportunity to further investigate penguins and create hands on activities for students to learn STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) through penguins and wildlife in general. I was asked to do a live Google Hangout for Girlstart, an organization that promotes STEM participation throughout the country. I chose to do the live chat on penguins for a few reasons. First, penguins are so charismatic I thought what person wouldn’t be intrigued by them and what students wouldn’t love to do a project based on penguins! Second, penguins have some crazy unique adaptations that enable them to survive and you need to hear more about them. And lastly, 4 of the 18 species of penguins are listed as endangered by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) and there is something we can all do to help out!
So take a look at the video and meet my friend Sid. We had some technology problems but we made it work! Thanks to Tom and Alyssa for helping out and working through the glitches. And thanks to Girlstart for having me on!
Don’t forget to listen and find out what you can do!
As always, I like to over prepare and have way more than what I need, especially since it was live and questions weren’t till the end. I didn’t say everything I wanted to but I had a cheat sheet to keep me on track. When I picked up the paper at the end I realized it’s kind of like a musicians set list for the night. Made me smile so I thought I would post it here too…
Penguins!