Learning About Sea Creatures at the Aquarium
By Eileen Ogintz

MONTEREY, Calif. -- Being a whale is harder than it looks. The whale wannabes are fluttering their flippers furiously but not getting very far on their 10,000-plus-mile journey. Others are struggling to trap tiny shrimp for dinner.

The "mother whale" is working hard to guide her baby to the surface to take his first breath. He needs 2,000 bottles worth of milk a day!

Nearby, an elephant seal bellows, a dolphin whistles, and a sea lion barks as parents tell their little whales it's time to hang up their flukes and flippers and return to being kids so they can see the rest of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

But the whale wannabes aren't in any hurry to leave. Some wander just outside to peer through telescopes, maybe catching a glimpse of real whales or a pod of dolphins as they swim by.

Elsewhere in this huge aquarium along the Pacific Coast, on the site of what was Cannery Row's largest cannery, kids are oohing and aahing over the oh-so-cute sea otters and gaping at the three-story-high kelp forest teeming with sea creatures that replicates what's under the sea just outside. They stand spellbound, watching fragile jellyfish and pet bat rays swimming in a giant pool.

Since its inception nearly 15 years ago, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has been dedicated to showcasing the sea life found right here and how we all can better preserve it. The message is brought home to kids with an increasing number of creative hands-on exhibits and stations such as the Flippers, Flukes " Fins area. So important are these junior aquarium-goers that, next spring, Monterey Bay Aquarium will unveil a 7,000-square-foot interactive Splash Zone for kids, literally a children's museum within an aquarium, the first anywhere, museum officials believe. (Call the Monterey Bay Aquarium at ; in California, . To avoid long lines, buy tickets ahead at those numbers or online at www.mbayaq.org.)

At the same time, a growing number of other aquariums around the country also have begun to focus on their regions with plenty of hands-on action designed for kids. "And there are probably 20 to 30 others that are in planning stages," notes Monterey Aquarium executive Hank Armstrong, who is active in the American Zoo and Aquarium Association.

The Aquarium of South Carolina in Charleston is slated tonext spring, complete with salt marshes, swamps, rushing streams and all of the animals and plants that live there. Another is planned for Tacoma, Wash., based on Northwest waters.

This is all good news for traveling parents who can count on Monterey and these other institutions to help children -- and themselves -- better understand the region they're visiting and the marine conservation efforts underway there, from pollution in Boston Harbor (at the New England Aquarium) to the risk sea otters face from oil spills (at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific). They're also terrific what-do-we-do-now-when-we're-tired-of-swimming solutions for a hot (or maybe, if we're lucky, rainy) summer day at home.

Even better, these regional aquariums aren't just in the biggest cities, but also in places such as Corpus Christi, Texas, Virginia Beach, Va., Norwalk, Conn., and New Orleans, La., where visitors can, among other things, meet and greet alligators and see what life looks like under an oil rig.

(Visit the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Web site at www.aza.org and link to these member aquariums and others around the country. Check to see if membership at your local aquarium will get you in free elsewhere.)

"We're getting inquiries all the time," notes aquarium designer Linda Rhodes, who helpedthe Monterey Bay Aquarium and is overseeing the Charleston project. At the same time, she adds, established aquariums are adding more regional exhibits.

Here are a couple of especially good bets for traveling families looking to learn a little natural history along the way this summer:

-- Show the kids a barking tree frog, an 80-pound giant catfish and a 100-plus-year-old alligator snapping turtle at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, organized to guide families from the Tennessee River's source in the Appalachian high country to the Mississippi Delta and beyond. It's the first major freshwater life center. (Call or www.tnaqua.org.)

-- Don't miss the crocodile and other "Frights of the Forest" such as the electric eel, poison dart frogs, medical leeches at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, also the place to explore both the Florida wetlands and a 14-foot-tall coral reef that can't help but get the kids excited about snorkeling. (Call or www.flaquarium.org.)

-- Learn all about how salmon find their way home again at the the Oregon Coast Aquarium's new "At the Jetty" exhibit in Newport, Ore., and the Seattle Aquarium's raceway that's home to thousands of salmon released to migrate to northern feeding grounds. Don't miss the tufted puffins in one of the country's largest seabird aviaries at the Oregon Coast Aquarium or spend a Saturday cruising around the San Juan Islands looking for killer whales with Seattle Aquarium naturalists. (Call the Oregon Coast Aquarium at or www.aquarium.org or the Seattle Aquarium at or www.seattleaquarium.org.)

But besides what the kids -- and you -- will learn at an aquarium, there's another reason to visit. "Research shows that people seem to have much better personal communication in the aquarium," explains noted aquarium designer Jim Peterson from his Seattle office. "The fish are so calming.

"We've figured out that a visit to the aquarium isn't about you and the fish," Peterson adds. "It's about what happens between you and the kids around the fish."

(c) 1999, Eileen Ogintz. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate

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