Project Penguin is a Conservation Education Program delivered by Taronga Zoo's Learning Centre in partnership with the Northern Beaches Secondary College for the Northern Beaches Learning Alliance (NBLA) Community of Schools.
For six weeks, school students learn everything about the Little Penguins that live in the local area, becoming youth ambassadors for the locally threatened species. This year the program has over 780 students from 6 schools in the Northern Peninsula region.
Public Schools include: Manly Village, Brookvale, Curl Curl North, Harbord, Beacon Hill and Balgowlah Heights. Their high school mentors are from: NBSC Manly Campus, NBSC Balgowlah Boys Campus, NBSC Mackellar Girls Campus and NBSC Cromer Campus.
The Primary School students (Years 4-6), with their High School mentors (Years 8-10), undertake a range of learning activities and field trips aimed to increase their knowledge of the Little Penguins, threats to the colony and positive actions that they and the public can take to protect the species.
As a culmination of the program the students start their own community education program by getting their conservation messages out to the public. Taronga Zoo will be showcasing the students' work at an expo on Thursday 17 June. Following the expo their work will be displayed in various community locations within the Northern beaches area.
Now in its fifteenth year, Project Penguin is run with the support of the Sydney Harbour Parks and Wildlife, Manly Environment Centre, and various Zoo experts and community volunteers in the Manly district.
