The last little penguin colony on Sydney’s northern beaches is overcoming threats to its survival thanks to a project involving Department of Education Zoo Education Team, Taronga Zoo and eight Northern Beaches public schools.

For 10 weeks, primary school students – with their high school mentors – undertake a range of activities to deepen their knowledge of Manly’s little penguins, threats to the colony and positive actions that we can all take to protect the species.

Relieving Zoo Education Advisor, Alexandra Heagney, said the primary school students had to solve one of the problems that the little penguins face, develop their own prototype solutions and create a community awareness campaign focused on protecting the penguins.

“What we hope to see out of this project is community awareness and students becoming advocates for the little penguin colony in Manly,” she said. “We also hope to see that they make changes when they become adults and teenagers too.”

During Project Penguin, the primary students are guided through the design thinking process and are supported by local high school student mentors.

The project follows a project-based learning framework implemented across a number of the department’s Zoo Education programs, with a focus on authentic cross-curricular learning focused on a locally threatened species.

The 22 best ideas were then shared at a Taronga Zoo expo attended by more than 640 students from Balgowlah Heights, Beacon Hill, Brookvale, Harbord and Manly West Public Schools and their mentors from Northern Beaches Secondary College Cromer, Balgowlah Boys and Mackellar Girls and The Beach School.

For example, one team from Harbord Public School developed a habitat with a surrounding pressure plate to detect anything heavier than a penguin.

Once activated, fox repellent and water are sprayed, along with noise from speakers to scare off any predator, with nets providing further protection from sea birds.

Brookvale Public School Year 3 student Neve Gordon enjoyed working on an idea to make better, storm-proof bins to reduce plastic pollution on the coastline.

“My favourite part of the project was working in groups and making things,” she said.

WHY PENGUINS?

• They’re an indicator species: Little penguins are at the top of the marine food chain for small fish and invertebrates. If their population declines, it can signal bigger environmental problems such as pollution, overfishing, or climate change.

• They help maintain ecosystem balance: By feeding on small fish, squid, and krill, little penguins help keep prey populations in check.

• They’re part of Sydney’s coastal identity: The Little Manly colony is the only breeding penguin colony left on the NSW mainland. They are a living connection to what Sydney’s coastline looked like long before the city grew around it, but they face challenges such habitat loss, pollution and the impacts of climate change
  

• They’re unique and irreplaceable: Little penguins are the smallest penguin species in the world, and the Little Manly colony is one of the most urban penguin populations anywhere. If they disappear here, they’ll never naturally return, it would be the end of a centuries-old population.