Lesson video

Hi, I'm Mr. Buckingham, and I'm so glad you decided to join me for today's lesson.

Now, this is gonna be a really fun lesson because we're gonna be researching lots of information about a very interesting species of penguin.

Ready to write a report about it.

So I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope you are to.

Let's make a step.

Today's lesson is called, researching information about a penguin's appearance and adaptations, from our unit called, pandas or antarctic animals non-chronological report.

And if you're doing this lesson, you're working towards writing reports on antarctic animal, specifically a penguin.

By the end of today's lesson, we'll be able to write notes about a penguin's appearance and adaptations from a range of sources.

So in this lesson, we're going to be gathering information about a species of penguin in order to prepare to write about them in a non-chronological report.

So that means it's important we keep our notes safe for the future.

Now, you might be using the worksheet that comes with this lesson, or your teacher might have told you to organise your notes in a particular way.

But either way, hang on to them carefully.

Let's get to work.

Here are keywords for today's lesson.

My turn, your turn.

Source, credible, origin, theme, and bullet points.

Well done.

So a source is someone or something that supplies information.

And something is credible if it can be believed or trusted.

The origin of something is where it starts, where it comes from.

And a theme of a paragraph is its central idea that the writer wants the audience to engage with deeply.

And bullet points are punctuation marks that lay out key information in a nonfiction text, but we'll also be using them today to make notes.

Here's our lesson outline for today.

We're going to start off by looking at the difference between general and specific information, and recording in notes some general information about the species of penguin.

Then we'll go into researching those penguins' appearance and then their adaptations to their environment and their lifestyle.

So in this unit, we are very lucky because we're gonna be writing an non-chronological report that tells our reader all about macaroni penguins.

Now, they have nothing to do with pasta.

They're an animal that lives in the area around the Antarctic.

And you can see from the picture, they're a very distinctive creature with their yellow crest there.

And we'll talk more about that later on in the lesson.

So, we're going to try and find out lots of information about macaroni penguins today in order to help us with our writing.

Because in our report we're going to include, all of these paragraphs will have an introduction.

We'll talk about the penguins' appearance, their adaptations, their habitats, their diet, and then we'll have a conclusion that talks about the threats that macaroni penguins face.

Because unfortunately, they do face some threats in the modern world.

Now, you might have a particular audience in mind for your report in your school, or depending on what your teacher has told you, so that makes it even more exciting to present all this information about this fascinating creature.

So if you want to write all this information about macaroni penguins, we'll need to do some research using trusted sources, sources we think we can rely on.

And when we're doing research, we have to look carefully at the origin of the information, where it comes from, in order to decide whether it's credible, whether we can trust it.

So let's suppose we're researching what macaroni penguins eat, and we see this comment on an online video about macaroni penguins.

It says, "Macaroni penguins love pasta." Hmm, well, straightaway we're thinking that's a bit suspicious.

But then we see this statement on in a well-known online encyclopaedia, and it says, "Macaroni penguins eats small crustaceans, fish, squid, and octopus." So we'll have to decide which of these sources do we trust more, which has an origin that makes it more credible.

And of course, the online encyclopaedia, it's a well-known one, will be more credible.

We're more likely to trust that information, and we can use our common sense sometimes to tell whether something might be true or false.

So using the information about the origin, the source of the information, can you decide which macaroni penguin fact below is the most credible, the most trustworthy? Pause the video and decide.

Okay, let's have a look.

So, the source for A, is a website you've never heard of.

The source for B, is an organisation that produces national news for TV.

And the source for C, is a conversation with a trusted adult.

Now, adults might know lots about penguins, but they might not necessarily be experts even if we trust them.

So, B is probably the most credible source there.

Now, news organisations might get things wrong, but we have to try and rely on what we know about where the information is from.

We know about the origin of that information in order to make a judgement call about whether it's credible or not.

So B, it's probably our best bet here.

Good job.

So, we'll need to find both general and specific information about macaroni penguins for our report.

Let me explain what I mean.

We might start off with an introduction that gives some general information about macaroni penguins.

Then we'll zoom in on specific areas.

For instance, the penguins' appearance and their adaptations, their habitats, and their diets.

And then we'll zoom back out for the conclusion to talk about the future of macaroni penguins in general.

So, general information won't be the same as the specific information.

The specific information will be about particular aspects of the penguin, particular themes that relate to the penguin.

So each of these paragraphs will have its own theme that the reader is going to really delve deep into.

But the introduction and the conclusion don't have a particular theme.

They're going to focus on the general ideas about macaroni penguins.

So, is each fact here about macaroni penguins general, or is it specific to a particular theme? Pause the video and decide if it's general or specific.

Well done.

Good effort.

So A, it says, "Macaroni penguins are vulnerable to extinction." Well, that fact wouldn't necessarily fit in a paragraph about the penguin's diet or their habitat.

So this is a general piece of information.

"The penguins weigh 5.

5 kilogrammes." That's a specific piece of information about their size.

"Their diet consists mostly of krill, tiny crustaceans." Again, it's specific to their diet.

And then D says, "Like all penguins, they are flightless." We could argue that's part of their appearance, but really it's a very general statement, isn't it? It's not something that's particularly specific.

So I think we call that general information.

Really well done for categorising those pieces of information correctly.

Good work.

So let's discover some general information about macaroni penguins that we could use in our introduction.

So this is where we're starting to gather ideas.

So you might want to get your note-taking equipment ready.

Now, you also might want to go and do some research of your own from different credible sources.

But I'm gonna give you some ideas to get you started.

So here we can see two macaroni penguins laying on the ground here on a beach.

So, like all penguins, macaroni penguins are flightless birds, and they're easily recognised from that yellow crest you see on their head.

And they live in the seas and islands around Antarctica.

So they don't live right in the middle of Antarctica, but they live around some of the edges and in the islands that are in the seas around Antarctica.

And they're from the Eudyptes family of crested penguins.

So the whole group of penguins that have crest, and they're called the Eudyptes family.

And that name, Eudyptes, comes from the ancient Greek, meaning, "good diver." And we'll talk more about their diving later on in this topic.

So their scientific name, their Latin name, and I might say this wrong, is Eudyptes chrysolophus.

So we've got the family name there, Eudyptes, and then their specific name for this species.

And they're species vulnerable, unfortunately, to extinction, which means they're at risk of going extinct.

So it's really interesting information to start us off, but it's all quite general, isn't it? We've not delved deep into their diet or their habitat.

We've given some general overview facts here which will really help our readers to understand the basics about macaroni penguins.

So can you complete each fact to give some general factual information about macaroni penguins? Pause the video and decide how you would fill each gap.

Well done.

Good job.

So in A, we'd say, "Macaroni penguins live in the seas and islands around.

." Well done, "Antarctica." B says, "Macaroni penguins are from the Eudyptes family.

This name comes from the ancient Greek for.

." Nice, "good divers." "All penguins are.

." Yes, "flightless birds." And D says, "Macaroni penguins are considered.

." Good, "vulnerable to extinction." So those are really useful general facts about macaroni penguins that our reader will really want to know before they delve deeper into specific themes.

So, let's do our first task for this lesson.

We're gonna start making our first notes.

They're gonna be vital when we come to do our writing later on.

So, we can use our research, create bullet point notes, to help us with our writing.

And we don't have to use full sentences for these.

So, here's an example of notes giving general information about stag beetles that would be appropriate for the introduction of a text about stag beetles.

We could say they're recognisable from their jaws.

Their Latin name is Lucanus cervus.

They're the largest beetle, the length of a human thumb.

And they're endangered species and they're protected by law.

None of those are complete sentences.

Some of them are just phrases with no verbs at all.

So, these really help us to trigger our memory of what the facts were that these were based on.

So in the same way, I'd like you to write five bullet point notes, or more if you wish, of general information about macaroni penguins that we could use in the introduction of our report.

So pause the video and using the stag beetle ideas to help you, and you might want to look back in the video as well if that would be helpful, let's write those five bullet point notes.

Have a go.

Well done.

Great effort.

So here's some examples of the bullet point notes you might want to have taken about macaroni penguins for your introduction.

You could have put, "recognisable from yellow crest," just like the stag beetle's recognisable from its jaws.

You could have put their Latin name, Eudyptes chrysolophus.

You might have said they're flightless like all penguins.

You might have said they're from the Eudyptes penguin family, meaning good divers.

And we know they live in the seas and islands around Antarctica, and they're vulnerable to extinction.

So, now, a second mini task if you'd like.

You might want to try converting these notes back into complete sentences by saying them out loud to a partner, or just out loud to yourself if you don't have a partner today.

And that's going to really help you to remember them.

So, for instance, for that one which says, "flightless like all penguins," I could say the macaroni penguin is a flightless bird, like all other penguins.

So I've gone from my note back to complete sentence, which helps me to lock that fact in my brain.

So if you'd like to that, pause the video now.

Well done.

So, we've completed our general information notes for our introduction.

We're now going to move on to researching macaroni penguins' appearance in more detail.

Let's go.

So we've now done our research for an introduction giving general information about these penguins.

So we are now going to zoom in on a specific theme, and we research the penguins' appearance.

So this is going to be information that would be in a specific paragraph, really focusing in on one specific area.

So I'm going to give you some information now.

You might want to go and research your own from some trusted, credible sources.

So, we know that they have a distinctive yellow crest that resembles or looks a bit like hair, and they also have white plumage or feathers on their belly.

The plumage on their back, their head, their flippers and their tail is black.

So they have white plumage here and black plumage on their back.

So plumage, a great subject specific word for feathers.

So they have a thick orange-brown bill and red eyes.

And their feathers are short and close together.

And finally, their legs and their feet are pink as you can see in the photo.

So they've got some really good facts there that are zooming in very much more closely on the specific theme of penguins' appearance.

We probably wouldn't put some of these things in our introduction, because they're very specific to the appearance of the penguins.

So can you match the part of the penguin's body to its description here.

Pause the video and have a try.

Well done.

Good effort.

So A, the bill is thick and orange-brown.

The plumage on the back is black.

The crest on the head is yellow.

And the plumage on its belly is white.

Well done.

Good matching.

So, let's find out more about the theme of the macaroni penguins' appearance.

And you can see here in the picture, a younger macaroni penguin, so it's not yet a fully grown adult.

So, a fully grown adult macaroni penguin, is about 70 centimetres in length, and they weigh about 3.

5 kilogrammes.

Also got some statistics there, some numerical facts.

Male and female macaroni penguins look similar, but males are slightly larger and they have a larger bill.

So they're not very easy to distinguish apart from the males being slightly bigger.

So they moult, that means they shed their feathers and get new ones once a year.

So they're replacing all their feathers with new ones.

And this takes about a month, and actually, they can't enter the water at all while they're moulting for that whole month.

So we'll talk a bit later about how they're adapted to survive when they can't go fishing in the water.

And they don't have that complete yellow crest until they're around three to four years old.

So it takes a while for that distinctive yellow crest to develop.

And as you said, you might want to go and find some other features of the penguins' appearance by doing your own research as well.

So, are these statements about macaroni penguins' appearance, true or false? Pause the video and decide.

Well done.

Good job.

So, A says, "The macaroni penguin is shorter than an adult human." Yes, that's true.

They're only 70 centimetres tall.

B says, "All macaroni penguins have a full yellow crest." Well that's false because they don't get it until they're a little bit older.

"Once a year, the penguins replace all their feathers." That's true, it's called.

Well, they're moulting.

And then D says, "Male and female macaroni penguins are identical." No, that's false.

They're very similar, but they're not identical.

The males are slightly larger with a larger bill.

Really well done for noticing those subtle differences between them.

Good work.

So, now we're ready for our second task, our second bit of note-taking.

We've seen lots of information now about macaroni penguins' appearance.

So we're going to use this to create our research notes about this specific theme.

So, here's an example of bullet point notes about the appearance of stag beetles.

I could say male has oversized mandibles or jaws.

I could say completely harmless to humans.

I could say the female is smaller and they have normal-sized jaws.

And they both have wings in a hard wing case, but the females rarely fly.

So do you see how already there is almost converting those back to complete sentences, which shows how good notes are at triggering our memory of facts.

So, I'd like you to now draw a picture of macaroni penguin, or use a photograph if you prefer, and I'd like to annotate around it with notes like the ones on the left about its appearance.

So let's see how many short bullet point style notes we can gather about the macaroni penguins' appearance around a small sketch of them as well.

Pause the video and have a go.

Okay, so hopefully you've got a picture now of your macaroni penguin.

And let's see of some of the examples of some of the types of notes you might have come up with.

Maybe you put, "Distinctive yellow crest when it's three to four years old." You might have said, "White plumage on the belly and black plumage on the head, back, and feathers." You might have said, "Thick orange-brown bill, red eyes, pink legs and feet." You might have said, "Moult once a year, replace all feathers." And maybe you said, "Males and females very similar, but males slightly larger and bigger bill." And maybe you wrote down the statistics about their size, their length, it's about 70 centimetres, and their weight, about 3.

5 kilogrammes.

So just as we did before, you might want to now try and convert these notes back to complete sentences.

For instance, for the fact about their length and weight, I could say, "Macaroni penguins are, on average, around 70 centimetres in length, and they weigh, on average, 3.

5 kilogrammes." So I've converted the notes back to a sentence to lock into my brain.

If you'd like to do that, pause the video now and have a go.

Well done.

So now we're going to move to the final section of our lesson, researching macaroni penguins' adaptations to their lifestyle and their environment.

So adaptations are special features that animals and plants develop to help them survive where they live, and survive and thrive doing the things they need to do to survive.

So, these penguins live around Antarctica, and you can see Antarctica in the picture on the right, where they dive in the sea and hunt for krill and other small creatures we'd find there.

And you can see on the left the penguins out at sea.

You can see they can leap out of the water as well.

So, macaroni penguins are really well adapted to this lifestyle, to the things they do at sea, the fishing they must do, and the diving they must do, and to the place they live, to Antarctica, and what it's like there.

So let's find out how they're well adapted to their lifestyle and their habitat.

So first of all, here are some of the adaptations macaroni penguins have for swimming and diving, which obviously they must do to obtain, to get, the food they need to survive.

So first of all, they have excellent underwater vision, which helps them to escape from predators.

There are predators like killer whales, which hunt on macaroni penguins, so they have to be able to escape them underwater.

So their excellent vision underwater helps them to do that.

And actually, their vision on land is much worse.

But they don't have as many predators on land, so it's not so much of a problem.

They have a hook-and-loop-like tongue, a very rough tongue, that helps them to grip on to their slippery prey.

So let's imagine that underwater, they've grabbed a fish with their bill, and because their tongue has that hook-and-loop texture, they can grip onto the fish and it doesn't escape and swim back away.

They also have solid bones instead of hollow bones like most birds do.

And that allows them to dive deeper and longer.

So, birds that fly in the sky have hollow bones, which you can imagine would be helpful because they're lighter.

But penguins have solid bones which are not hollow, so that helps them to dive deeper 'cause it almost weighs them down, and that allows them to dive and get their food.

So they also have webbed feet to help them steer while they're swimming underwater.

They have those thick flippers which are powerful to push through the water and go faster.

And they have a streamlined body, which we can see in the picture.

It's very sleek and smooth, and that helps them to move efficiently through the water.

And finally, their muscles can store oxygen inside them so they can dive for longer periods of time.

So they can take a breath out of the water, the oxygen stored in their muscles, and they can dive underwater.

Because penguins can't breathe underwater, they have to rely on their breath, but they're storing their oxygen in their muscles to dive for longer.

So they're really well adapted, we can see, for this lifestyle, based around diving and swimming in the ocean.

So can you explain how macaroni penguins are well adapted to a life of swimming and diving? Pause the video and see how many adaptations you can come up with.

Well done.

You thought of loads.

Here are some of the ones you might have come up with.

Their solid bones help them to dive deeper into the ocean.

They have excellent underwater vision.

They have strong flippers to propel or push them through the water.

Their body is streamlined, that means it's easier to move through the water.

Their webbed feet help them steer.

And their muscles store oxygen for longer dives.

So loads of ways in which their body is adapted well for their lifestyle of swimming and diving for food.

But macaroni penguins also have adaptations to their habitat.

We know Antarctica can be very cold, so you need to be well adapted to survive in that cold environment.

So, macaroni penguins have a layer of blubber or fat, that gives them insulation from the cold.

So it's a layer under their skin of fat that helps them to be kept warm, warm enough to survive.

And they can also store fat on their body.

So they store enough fat to last for over a month while they moult on shore.

Do you remember I said while they're moulting, changing their feathers, they can't go in the ocean to hunt for food? So what they do is before they have to moult, they build up this fat store so that they can stand or wait on land without fishing at all for a whole month, just relying on those fat stores to survive.

Isn't that amazing? And they have also very closely packed feathers, as we said.

And those closely packed feathers provide insulation, keep them warm, and they stop the cold water reaching their skin when they're swimming.

So that's really helpful.

And finally, they secrete or produce an oil from their body that coats their feathers and makes them waterproof.

If you've ever tried to mix oil with water, you know they don't mix well.

So putting oil over their body by secreting it out of their body, makes those feathers waterproof and keeps the water away.

So we can see some really fantastic adaptations that macaroni penguins have to their very cold, very harsh Antarctic environment.

So how did each of these features help the macaroni penguin? Pause the video and explain.

Well done.

Good explanation.

So the blubber layer helps them to provide warmth in those cold seas.

It provides insulation, doesn't it? The oil secretions provide waterproofing for their feathers.

The webbed feet help with their steering underwater.

And that hook-and-loop rough tongue helps them to grip onto their slippery prey animals, so the animals don't escape.

Really well done.

So let's do our final task for this lesson, our notes about the macaroni penguins' adaptations.

Now, here are some bullet point notes about the adaptations of stag beetles.

And you can see I've used arrows to show how the adaptations help the stag beetle.

For instance, that larva stage helps them to build up energy reserves, which means when they're an adult, they can survive with very little feeding.

Their large wings allow them to fly around looking for mates.

Their large mandibles or jaws help the males to fight to impress mates and get mates.

So, in the same way, can you make a list of notes about the ways macaroni penguins are adapted to their diet and their habitat.

And I would like you to use arrows to show how each adaptation helps the penguin.

So if you choose webbed feet, you could say "Webbed feet," and then an arrow, and then say how do those webbed feet help the macaroni penguin.

How is that adaptation useful? Pause the video and have a go at these bullet point notes.

Well done.

Really good job.

So here are some of the notes you may have made about macaroni penguins' adaptations, and maybe you found out some of your own as well in addition to these.

So first of all, their solid bones and their ability to store oxygen in their muscles, help them to dive deeper.

Their streamlined body, their webbed feet, and their thick flippers, help them to be good swimmers.

And excellent underwater vision helps them to escape predators.

That hook-and-loop-like tongue helps them to grip onto their prey.

And that blubber layer and those closely packed feathers help them to stay warm in the water.

And finally, their oil secretions, that's a good word, help them to be waterproof, and that helps them to stay warm as well.

Really well done for getting those notes so clearly written with the arrows to show the cause and effect.

How do these things help? What's the effect of each of these to help the penguin to survive? So, finally again, you could try now saying all your notes from this lesson aloud, in complete sentences to a partner or just out loud to yourself.

And this is going to really lock these important facts into your brain.

Let me give you one example.

I can say for that final note on our list, I can say, "The penguin secretes oil from its body.

This helps the feathers to be waterproof, and as a result, the penguin is able to stay warm in the cold oceans around the Antarctic." So actually, that was several sentences I said, wasn't it? And that's absolutely fine.

But let's try and make our notes now out loud into complete sentences again.

If you'd like to do that, pause the video and have a go now.

Really well done.

Let's summarise our learning in this lesson.

We learned that because non-chronological reports are nonfiction texts, we have to research carefully before we write them so that the information is factual and correct.

Our introduction will include general information about macaroni penguins, but the sections will give specific information about each theme.

When we research, we should think about the origin of the information to help us decide if it's credible or not.

And we should only include credible information in our reports.

While we research, we can use bullet points to record our notes so that we can refer to them later.

You've done a fantastic job of recording your research notes about macaroni penguins in this lesson.

And I hope you're inspired to go away and find out some more through your own research if you haven't done that so far.

So, really well done for all your work in this lesson.

I hope to see you again in the future lesson.

Goodbye.