Dive into the Deep in DC! The Sant Ocean Hall

How Big? How Deep? How Old? What’s There? Why Should We Care?   Questions, Questions everywhere - all about our ocean planet.  Important Questions – that’s what the exciting Sant Ocean Hall, the newest addition to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, is all about.  That, and the true nature of science.  In the Ocean Hall’s magnificent featured movie, Deep Ocean Explorers, we are reminded that we humans “do science not because of what we know, but because of what we don’t know.”  We learn that our planet, fully 71 per cent ocean, is largely unexplored, and that, most importantly, our very lives depend on it.

When you don’t know what you don’t know, this creates an enormous problem.  In science, observed phenomena demand investigation, inquiry – the answering of Questions.

So MANY questions, however, can be daunting, even a little frightening.  The ocean makes us all feel small, perhaps insignificant. 

But nothing could be further from the truth.  As the top predators on this ocean planet, we have in our hands the power to preserve and protect or waste and destroy.  All through the Ocean Hall, one will see pictures of human hands, reminding us of our impact on the ocean.

The Ocean Hall is about wonder and awe.  I believe it should be first viewed from ABOVE – from a more human perspective.

From this vantage point, the viewer understands that the exhibit undulates and surprises.  One should not attempt to take it all in at once.  There’s simply too much to learn.

I would begin my journey through the Sant Ocean Hall in the subdued darkness of the movie hall, where ocean scientists will take you on a voyage to the deep, largely unexplored world alive with creatures glowing, gaping, surging, floating, and feasting.  Filled with wonder, you will emerge with eyes that will focus more clearly on what this astonishing venue has to teach.
   
Imagine yourself a pulsating jellyfish, floating among the exhibits, soaking up knowledge as if it were food.   Begin at the beginning – a trip back in geologic time, where you’ll discover that our planet is nothing if not dynamic and constantly changing – marked by vast extinctions and explosions of new life forms.

 

Emerging from your time travel experience, you have many choices for your next adventure.  Stand still.  Look around, look up!  You will immediately be drawn to the centerpiece of the Sant Ocean Hall, a life sized model of Phoenix, the North Atlantic Right Whale and official ambassador of the Ocean Hall.  He’s definitely smiling at you.

The story of Phoenix and the tragedy of his mother’s death at human hands will drive home the need to protect the highly endangered North Atlantic whale before they are no more. 

Now, let yourself begin to take in the Questions and the ways in which scientists are striving to answer them.  Just behind Phoenix’s tail is a tall column symbolizing the zones of the ocean.  A message, Different Places. Different Stories, reminds you that each zone is its own unique world of wonder.  In the Twilight Zone, transparent beings glow and sparkle with their own cold light.

You, too, could see them if you learned how to use some very cool equipment.






You’ll never see with your own eyes, however, those creatures which drive all ocean ecosytems – the plankton – microscopic beasties which, when examined under microscopes, truly look like alien life forms – like this crustacean larva, a form of zooplankton.

When you visit one of my favorite parts of the Ocean Hall, Science on a Sphere, sponsored by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, you will aquire a deep understanding of how and why phytoplankton power our planet.  Do you like to breathe?  Thank phytoplankton for your daily breaths of oxygen!

 

Also on the Sphere, you will learn about weather, currents, and the fascinating subject of plate tectonics – all of which topics, by the way, are part of our national standards for science education.

For absolutely no admission fee, the Sant Ocean Hall will bring you from the shore to the reef, down to deep abyssal plains and into the strange world of hydrothermal vents.  It demands that you answer the all important Question:  What would your life be like without the ocean?   What would you NOT have?

Dive into the Deep in DC! The National Aquarium in Washington

I like to watch people in museums.  Some enter an exhibit hall with eyes wide, mouths agape and smiling.  Others are cross and bored, walking about aimlessly with their arms crossed.  Still others seem easily distracted.  They appear troubled by the sensory overload that many modern museums can provoke.

Why do people come to museums?  Why do humans build them at all?  The best museums and aquaria engage the curious mind.   Some museums are based on the vision of a single person, while others come together by committee.  The beginning and end of each project is punctuated by hope and expectation on the part of both visitor and visionary. Will the final product measure up?

I recently returned to our nation’s capital to continue my research on my novel about the ocean.   In DC, an unparalleled mecca of museums, one can experience both the oldest and one of our nation’s newest venues for learning about the ocean.   I began this trip with America’s first public aquarium – the National Aquarium in Washington on 14th and Constitution - founded in 1873.

Don’t be put off by its modest entryway in the middle of the Herbert Hoover Building, nor by the dark stairway that takes you into the deepest part of this old building – as if you were dropping beneath the surface of the sea.   Instead, let your mind enter a meditative state as you progress down its quiet hallways, illuminated by the light from serene aquaria, celebrating our nation’s “Aquatic Treasures.”

In 1972 ((exactly 100 years after the first national park was created), our government established the National Marine Sanctuary Program. Overseen by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the project has designated over 18,000 square miles of ocean waters as protected sanctuaries from American Samoa to the Atlantic coast.

 

Each of these sanctuaries has something either unique or endangered to protect - from the kelp forests of Montery Bay to critically impacted coral reefs of the Florida Keys.

In addition to our nation’s marine sanctuaries, these hallways bring freshwater habitats into the minds and hearts of its visitors.  The National Aquarium in Washington invites the very young to interact with the graceful creatures before them, and children can be seen talking and laughing with the fish, turtles, and especially the spiny lobster! 

  

 

In these times of TTFN and OMG, there is more reason than ever to experience a venue like the National Aquarium in Washington – where you have to slow down, breathe, and relate to the wonders of our waters.