Animal behaviour
KS2: Science
Learning objectives
To understand survival instincts and reasons behind aspects of animal behaviour in extreme conditions.
Explain to pupils how penguins huddle together in order to keep warm when temperatures in the
Antarctic are at their most extreme. If possible use video clips, including extracts from ‘March of
the Penguins’ to illustrate.
This behaviour is called ‘huddling’. Sometimes the temperature will drop to -40 degrees with wind
speeds of 200km per hour. In a huddle the penguins loses approximately half the energy it would
lose if standing in isolation (on its own). Sometimes the number of penguins in a single ‘huddle’ will
be over fourteen thousand! What is even more amazing is that, as the penguins on the outside
become cold they move out of the strong wind and are sheltered by other penguins who then
take their turn to get cold. This movement means that the penguins continually circulate, with
cold penguins warming up on the inner sides of the ‘huddle’.
Your task: in groups you will
have 24 test tubes or small
empty plastic drinking bottles.
You will also have a strip
thermometer (or other
unbreakable thermometer)
and access to warm water.
Work out a way of testing how
the ‘huddling’ behaviour of
penguins keeps the penguins in
the middle of the ‘huddle’
warm. You will need to have
part of your experiment
measuring how quickly it would
take one “penguin” to lose its
body warmth (measuring its
temperature as it falls),
compared with the
temperature loss of a
“penguin” surrounded by other
“penguins”.
EDS
T h e L ea rni n g O rg an i sa ti on