I am often asked by young students on what they need to do and know in order to work with penguins.  The question is: where do you want to work? In an office publishing papers, in the field studying the birds, in a clinic performing surgeries, in a rehabilitation clinic working with stranded/ill penguins or in an aquarium or in a zoo?  Each of these has different requirements. My advice is to choose where you want to work first, then fill in the education associated with that aspect.  Start with volunteering or interning in one or more of these fields, ask the staff you are volunteering or interning with how they got started, take as many math and science classes as possible, work hard and be friendly.-Pamela Schaller

It is extremely important to provide high quality lighting for penguins.  Studies have shown that day length and light levels are registered through penguin’s eyes and trigger hormones.  These hormones are related to replacement of feathers and reproduction.  We have installed more than 91 fixtures in the exhibit each containing between 1-4 lamps.   These create phases of light from dawn to mid-day bright, sunset, twilight and midnight black.  They are scheduled to change with 34 degrees latitude.  This allows for long light days in summer and short light days  in winter.  You can watch a video that describes more about the exhibit by watching the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=PIjvfJpPASY