Let’s Play and Learn
Chasing Sounds Under Antarctic Plains
Join Izzy and Penni,
penguin friends from the plains,
who hear sounds from below.
Who is calling their names?
Storytime!
You can listen to the reading of this book.
Let’s Play!
Learn about crazy-but-true brinicles.
Watch them in time-lapse as they grow under the Antarctic Plains!
Download the activities found at the back of the book.
Watch the crazy Brinicle that inspired my story!
Here is a great, short, well-explained video showing this crazy Brinicle in motion.
(Parents, there is a “bad” word (he__) at the very start, so you can skip the first two seconds! He really does a great job at a kid’s level, I think!)
“Ice finger of death beneath the Antarctic ice” has a nice, short explanation that has the following video embedded:
Scientific American’s, “How Eerie Sea-Ice “Brinicles” Form,” had the full-length video I first saw. It isn’t on this otherwise informative page anymore, but here it is on YouTube:
Now let’s have some fun with a jigsaw puzzle of the book’s cover.
The grid icon in the center of the puzzle lets you change how many pieces there are. Hit the OK to start the play.
And now for a memory game – match up the friends with the name of the sea creature!
Research for the Book
Emperor Penguins are only found in Antarctica – or are they?
National Geographic Reports “This penguin swam 2,000 miles to Australia — and we don’t know why”
By Tatyana Woodall
November 15, 2024
…in an astonishing feat, one emperor penguin, alone and malnourished, recently made landfall on a beach in Australia, more than 2,000 miles away from its native Antarctica.
For a human, that distance is equivalent to doing more than 44,000 laps in a Olympic-size pool.
On November 1, (2024) the adult male was spotted waddling up Ocean Beach in Denmark, a town in Western Australia, where he was later brought to safety by local wildlife experts. The arrival of the emperor penguin, now nicknamed Gus, marks the first time the species has ever reached the continent.
https://www.wired.com/2013/05/swimming-beneath-the-brinicles-in-antarctica/
https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/science-and-future/brinicle-ice-antarctica-sea-creatures-death-545049.html
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/antarctica-life-under-ice
More, taken from studying this Wikipedia article:
Thwaites Ice Shelf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thwaites_Ice_Shelf
Antarctica’s ice shelves are melting at an alarming rate—erasing habitat, and life forms, that may not exist anywhere else.
A Squid at Thwaites Ice Shelf | Atlas Obscura
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkF72XWVGLA
Anemones Under The Ice | Atlas Obscura
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmiYgxf7k7s
See An Arrow-Worm Swim | Atlas Obscura
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0mJpYJoGbI
Exploring Antarctica’s Upside-Down World
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/antarctica-life-under-ice