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LEARNING RESOURCE GUIDE

About the Film

The adaptation of the highly acclaimed animated film, Happy Feet, is the story of the adventures of a young Emperor penguin in Antarctica in search of “mystical beings” (humans), who he believes can help do something about the fish that are disappearing.

The Resource Guide introduces you and your students to the world of penguins and provides some pre- and post-viewing activities that students can use in school or on their own.

Introduction

Penguins are a type of flight-less bird found in the ocean. Distantly related to the albatross, penguins have been around for at least 55 million years. Today there are 17 kinds (species) of penguins.

Often we associate penguins with the South Pole, but actually only two species, the Adélies and the Emperor penguins, live on or near Antarctica year round. Other species of penguins range along the coastlines of South America, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and even in the relatively warm waters surrounding the Galapagos Islands. Sometimes people confuse penguins with puffins, but penguins only live in the Southern Hemisphere and puffins in the Northern Hemisphere.

Adaptations

Adaptations help animals survive and reproduce in a specific environment. Penguins have many adaptations to living in the cold ocean.

Body shape – Their torpedo-like shape makes swimming easier.

BACKGROUND

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HAPPY FEET 4-D EXPERIENCE

Wings – Most birds have light, hollow bones to help them fly. However, the flippers (wings) of penguins are made of solid bone. This helps keep the flippers rigid like a paddle. One of the reasons penguins are such fast swimmers is their unique ability to propel forward on both the up and down stroke of their flippers.

Legs and feet – Penguins use their legs and feet like a rudder to steer through the water. Even though they are excellent swimmers, walking on land is not so easy, which explains their Charlie Chaplin-like waddle. Webbing between their toes also helps them swim. Large, heavy claws help them cling to the ice or dig burrows for nesting.

Feathers – Penguins can have as many as 80 feathers per square inch, many more times than other seabirds. The dense feathers keep them warm. Penguins also spread oil from a gland at the base of their tail onto the feathers to make them waterproof.

Coloration – Most people recognize penguins by their distinctive black and white coloration. This pattern helps penguins in two ways. The dark feathers on the back absorb sunlight to help penguins stay warm. In the water, their white underside makes it hard for predators to see them against the light from the sky.

Underwater Flyers

All these adaptations combine to help penguins “fly” through the water very quickly. Adélie penguins, for example, can sustain speeds of 5 mph underwater, but can go five times as fast in short bursts.

Penguins will sometimes “porpoise” like a dolphin — swim underwater then fly into the air to catch a breath of air, before changing direction and diving back in and porpoising again. Scientists believe this behavior helps penguins evade predators that have difficulty tracking the penguins in the air.

What’s For Dinner?

Penguins eat primarily fish, squid, and Antarctic krill, a small shrimp-like animal. Penguins can dive to 300 feet and stay under for 5–6 minutes hunting for food. Penguins hunt by sight. To capture their food they hold their necks in an “S” shape and lunge to grab their prey. Spines on their tongues help them grasp slippery prey. Penguins swallow their food under water.

So, who eats penguins? In the water, penguins have to avoid predators like leopard seals and orcas (killer whales). On land, predatory birds prey on eggs and young penguins.

To protect themselves against predators, penguins have adapted the ability to live in groups. Like most everything in a penguin’s life, they swim, hunt, breed, and nest in groups. Why? By staying in a group, predators have a harder time singling out individual penguins, making it safer for everyone.

Orca (Killer whale)

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Penguin Parenting

Penguins nest in large colonies called rookeries. During the breeding season penguins build simple nests made of stones or dig nest burrows. Usually just one egg is laid, but sometimes two. The eggshells are thick to prevent cracking on the rocky ground. To keep the eggs warm, the male penguin incubates the eggs, but in some species this job is shared. After the chicks hatch, both parents take turns staying with the chick while the other parent goes back to sea to find more food. After a few months the young are old enough to hunt on their own.

One of the most unusual breeding cycles of all animals is that of the Emperor penguin. After spending all summer hunting and building up their reserves, the penguins come to Antarctica in the fall and march many miles inland to their rookery. They do not build a nest. Instead males prop the egg on top of his feet, and then gently tucks the egg inside a little pouch to keep the egg warm. The females then leave to trudge back to the ocean to hunt for food. All winter long the males are left alone to incubate the single egg. During the long dark, cold Antarctic winter, males huddle together to stay warm all the while balancing the eggs on their feet. For over two months, the males stay with the eggs. Huddling together to stay warm in temperatures of 75 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, the birds on the outside of the group take turns with ones in the middle to stay warm. Finally, after the long cold winter is over, the females return from months at sea.

Conservation Issues

Of the 17 penguin species worldwide, almost half are believed to be declining, threatened or endangered. Declining food supply due to overfishing and periodic El Nino events are some of the reasons.

Marine litter (debris) is also a concern. Most of it originates on land and is carried by wind or water into the ocean. Sometime the debris is put directly in the ocean. Animals can become entangled in the debris or eat the trash, mistaking it for normal food, both can cause injury or death. Marine debris can also damage critical habitats animals need to live.

What Can You Do to Help Penguins

There are many simple ways you can help penguins and other ocean animals.

Put litter in its place – Don’t throw litter on the sidewalk, or pour or throw anything down storm drains. They eventually lead to a stream or river and ultimately the ocean. Be sure to clean up your trash, fishing line, and other items after visiting the beach, lake or other body of water.

Reduce, reuse and recycle – By reducing the amount of waste we send to the landfill, we can keep our environment cleaner.

Practice energy conservation – Turning off lights when not needed reduces the demand for energy, much of which is produced from burning coal. Emissions from coal-burning power plants are a significant source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which contributes to global climate change.

Make sustainable seafood choices – Ask your parents or caregivers to choose only sustainably grown seafood.

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Meet the Cast

Three types of penguins are the main stars of Happy Feet.

Mumble

Type of penguin: A young Emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri).

Fun fact: Emperor penguins are the largest penguins, standing almost four feet tall.

Ramon and his buddies

Type of penguin: Adélies penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae).

Fun fact: Male Adélies penguins return to the exact same nest they used the year before. They also like to steal pebbles from one another to build their best nests.

Lovelace

Type of penguin: Rockhopper penguin (Eudyptes chrysocome).

Fun fact: These penguins don’t actually breed in Antarctica. They are found in the Falkland Islands, Argentina and Chile. They are the most impacted by overfishing and are considered threatened globally.

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Close up of feet

PRE-FILM ACTIVITIESDraw a Penguin – Part 1

Here’s how you can draw a simple penguin. Use the space below for your drawing.

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5

Draw a circle a little taller than wide.

Draw smaller circle for the head.

Add the flippers. Add eyes, bill and an upside down “U” for the stomach.

Add feet and a tail. Feet are like an Upside down “V” with a dot in the middle. Two curved lines connect to the middle toe.

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Draw a Penguin – Part 2

Draw your penguin here:

LABeL THe FoLLoWIng PARTs:

BILL AND mOUTH

FLIPPERS

FEET

FEATHERS

BODY

Bonus question:

Can you tell how each of these parts help the penguin survive?

Bill -

Flippers -

Feet -

Feathers -

Body -

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Penguins and Polar Bears

Do penguins and polar bears live in the same place? Below are four maps. Each one shows the range for four different animals - penguins, polar bears, leopard seals, and orcas (killer whales).

Leopard Seal Orca

Penguin Polar Bear

For each animal, place a check mark in the box corresponding to the correct region where it lives.

Animals Northern Hemisphere Only

Southern Hemisphere Only

Both Northern and Southern Hemispheres

Penguin

Polar Bear

Leopard Seal

Orca

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HAPPY FEET 4-D EXPERIENCE HAPPY FEET 4-D EXPERIENCE

Word Find

Test your vocabulary by finding these words related to penguins.

ANTARCTICA

COLD

COLONY

EGG

FOOD CHAIN

HAPPY FEET

ICE

ICE SHELF

KRILL

LEOPARD SEAL

LOvELACE

mARINE DEBRIS

NEST

OCEAN

ORCA

OvERFISHING

PENGUIN

ROOKERY

SNOw

TRASH

POST-FILM ACTIVITIES

Q U I O K N L C V D S A R T M

Y S A P E K R I L L B H O F A

P T N S W A E J Y E D H O O R

E E T O Q W S R T O A T K O I

N R A C W U F D K P S G E D N

G L R G F D L E P A M N R C E

U O C O L O N Y X R U B Y H D

I V T H C C F C V D I V D A E

N E I J Z E N T B S C U I I B

L L C K E A M L R E E G G N R

M A A T E N K J H A G F O P I

Z C C N V F G J C L S D S A S

X E S V O V E R F I S H I N G

A G V B B K O M Z C T Y G H H

J I C E S H E L F V B E E N M

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satellite Tagging

In the film Happy Feet, scientists attached a satellite transmitter or tag to track the movements of Mumble, the young Emperor penguin.

Satellite tracking is used in real life to learn more about animals that travel long distances and about which we have little information. The tags are about the size of a cell phone. Scientists track penguins to learn more about their life at sea. Much is still to be learned.

Students record the location of a penguin during a simulated 5-day trip from the nesting colony, out to sea, and back. Find the position of the penguin by following the letter and the number until they intersect. For example, position A1 is the intersection of the line for coordinate “A” and the line for coordinate “1”.

TRACkIng DATA

DAY 2 – PENGUIN IS AT POSITION B2.

DAY 6 – PENGUIN IS AT POSITION C2.

DAY 11 – PENGUIN IS AT POSITION D3.

DAY 14 – PENGUIN IS AT POSITION C3.

DAY 18 – PENGUIN IS AT POSITION B2.

student Questions:

Using the map above and the tracking data, locate the position of the satellite tagged penguin for each day. Then connect the dots with arrows showing the direction of travel.

Bonus question:

The satellite determined that on Day 3 the penguin dove to a depth of 20 meters. What do you think the penguin was doing?

1

A

B

C

D

E

2 3 4 5

Cape Washington

ROSS SEA

DrygolskiIce Tongue

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I pledge to do my part to help penguins and other marine animals. I will try to:

Recycling my cans, bottles, paper, and donate used clothes and toys.

Remember to turn off the faucet when brushing my teeth.

Put litter in its place and don’t put anything down storm drains.

Remember to turn off lights when I leave the room.

Signed Date

TAKE THE PENGUIN PLEDGE

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Read a Book

A Penguin’s World by Caroline Arnold. Picture Window Books. www.picturewindowbooks.com

Penguins of the World by Wayne Lynch. www.FireflyBooks.com

Visit the Web

national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – Marine Debris Program http://marinedebris.noaa.gov

Penguin science.com www.penguinscience.com

scripps Institution of oceanography http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/penguins

sustainable seafood Watch Program www.montereybayaquarium.org

This companion piece to the film Happy Feet 4-D Experience was created by Educational Consultant Joe Harber for SimEx-Iwerks Entertainment. The resources listed above were used to develop this Learning Guide. Educators may reproduce these materials for students.

Design & illustration by Maggie Ziemirska SimEx-Iwerks Entertainment Graphic Design Department

HAPPY FEET and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s10)

LEARN MORE ABOUT PENGUINS

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Page 6:

Bill - A strong bill and a spikey tongue help penguins catch slippery fish.

Flippers - Powerful flippers help the penguin “fly” though the water.

Feet - Act as rudders to steer in the water. Strong claws help the penguin walk on ice and dig burrows for nesting.

Feathers - Penguins have more feathers per square inch than other seabirds. Dense, waterproof feathers help keep penguins warm.

Body - Their “torpedo” shape helps penguins move through water efficiently.

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Animals Northern Hemisphere Only

Southern Hemisphere Only

Both Northern and Southern Hemispheres

Penguin XPolar Bear XLeopard Seal XOrca X

ANSWERS AND SOLUTIONS

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Page 8:

Q U I O K N L C V D S A R T M

Y S A P E K R I L L B H O F A

P T N S W A E J Y E D H O O R

E E T O Q W S R T O A T K O I

N R A C W U F D K P S G E D N

G L R G F D L E P A M N R C E

U O C O L O N Y X R U B Y H D

I V T H C C F C V D I V D A E

N E I J Z E N T B S C U I I B

L L C K E A M L R E E G G N R

M A A T E N K J H A G F O P I

Z C C N V F G J C L S D S A S

X E S V O V E R F I S H I N G

A G V B B K O M Z C T Y G H H

J I C E S H E L F V B E E N M

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Bonus Question:

The satellite determined that on Day 3 the penguin dove to a depth of 20 meters. What do you think the penguin was doing?

FINDING FOOD

1

A

B

C

D

E

2 3 4 5

Cape Washington

ROSS SEA

DrygolskiIce Tongue

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NOTES

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NOTES

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NOTES

HAPPY FEET and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (s10)

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