National Penguin Awareness Day happens every year on January 22nd. It is a fun and cute day to celebrate penguins and their importance to the enviroment, ecosystem and overall wellbeing of our planet.
The environmental awareness club has a lot of good ways to celebrate this National Day that highlights our fluffy little friends. They even have some fun actions that students can take themselves to help protect penguins.
Aria de Leon the president of the club stated, “I think this day is a lot of fun because penguins are so cute and it draws attention to bigger issues like climate change.”
Nikoleta Mattson the vice president of the club explains “ We grew up with penguins. We know what they are obviously. And it’s good to dig a little deeper and know what’s going on in their habitat.”
“One really fun thing about penguins is that they have adapted to fly underwater which makes them the fastest swimming birds, as well as they can dive 800 feet, so its basically these 100 Shaq O’Neals stacked on top of each other.” said De Leon
Mattson adds on, “You know how penguins look like they are wearing tuxedos. That’s actually because they camouflage their white bellies. When they look up it looks like they blend in water in the dark. So yeah it’s gonna help them blend in and it makes them cute too.”
The two members had some great ideas of how students can take action themselves to protect penguins.
De Leon explained how the new MetroLink is opening up in San Dimas and how it would be a great idea for students to look into getting a free metro pass. She thinks that this would greatly benefit penguins due to the fact that it helps with climate change while releasing less CO2 into the atmosphere.
Mattson believes that a way to help penguins more directly is to be more mindful of the fish you eat. She explains that at the grocery store, there’s a blue fish label that’s called MSC which is a sustainable seafood company. Buying this fish helps with the problem of overfishing in penguin habitats.
Overall, National Penguin Awareness Day is more than just a fun celebration of these adorable creatures, its a day to remember their importance and to take action to protect them. The Enviromental Awareness club helps us realize that we can use this day to appreciate penguins and help penguins thrive in the habitats they live in.
