Students Birds Eye View

16 July 2019

A unique opportunity was experienced by excited Oakgrove School students when they took part in a two-part virtual tour of a Southern African rescue centre and got a close up of the rescued penguins they have adopted.

Each interactive 30 minute tour included a lesson on African Penguins, seabirds and marine conservation by an educational specialist from the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds. The students had a full exploration of the rescue facility and saw how the birds feed, swim and behave and they were also able to ask lots of questions. As part of the experience, the students adopted two penguins undergoing rehabilitation and a school competition to name the penguins resulted in them being called Leonard and Oreo.

The cyber sessions were organised by a science teacher at Oakgrove School, who whilst on a trip to South Africa, was so inspired by the excellent work she had seen the keepers and vets carrying out at the centre, she arranged the lessons to give the students the opportunity to see ecology in action.

The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds (SANCCOB) is a non-profit marine conservation organisation, whose primary objective is to reverse the decline of seabird populations through the rescue, rehabilitation and release of ill, injured, abandoned and oiled seabirds. They have two rescue centres, located in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.