SHARK WEEK AT THE SOUTH FLORIDA SCIENCE CENTER
(West Palm Beach, Fla) If the lifeguards order you out of the water along South Florida beaches during shark week, head straight to the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium, formerly the South Florida Science Museum, for a series of JAWS-dropping, shark-week-inspired activities planned for the week of August 5-9th.
The FINtastic fun starts on Monday August 5th and runs through Friday, August 9th, with special shark-themed crafts, activities and presentations. Science Center visitors will be able to create a shark tooth necklace, watch live shark and stingray feedings, learn fascinating facts about sharks and much more! On Thursday, August 8th, visitors will have an opportunity to speak with special guest Hannah Medd, a local marine biologist working to effectively apply scientific research to the shark conservation message. To learn more about why sharks are so vital to the marine ecosystem, be sure to stop in and visit Hannah at Professor Clark the Science Shark’s booth throughout the day. Additional opportunities for structured labs and facts will occur daily from 11am-2pm.
“We love the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week,” noted Science Center CEO Lew Crampton. “It’s another opportunity for us to be the community resource for continued hands-on, minds-on informal science education. Our guests and out-of-town visitors can come in to learn more about what they saw on TV, right here in our backyard, which allows us to further our new mission of ‘opening every mind to science’.”
With the new addition of a 3,000 square-foot aquarium, the largest fresh and saltwater aquarium between Miami and Orlando, the ScienceCenter is perfectly positioned for under-the-sea education. The aquarium features more than 90 different varieties of fish – including some of Florida’s most beautiful native fish such as Queen Angels, Pink Wrasse and of course sharks! Currently home to a nurse shark and a baby Marblehead shark, the ScienceCenter has plans to add two more shark species in the very near future – a Wobblegong shark and Brownbanded bamboo shark. Stingrays, close cousins of the sharks, also have a home at the newly expanded ScienceCenter, and will be on display in the ever popular touch tank.
And if modern day sharks aren’t enough to thrill guests, the ScienceCenter is currently hosting SavageAncientSeas: Dinosaurs of the Deep in the newly expanded exhibit hall. The traveling exhibit takes visitors on a tour of the late Cretaceous period, which existed over 70 million years ago. The exhibit is filled with huge carnivorous marine reptiles, with double-hinged jaws and teeth; gigantic flesh-eating fish, big enough to swallow an adult human being whole; flying reptiles, with three-foot skulls and the biggest sea turtles to have ever lived. Also included in the display is Megalodon, an extinct species of shark, also known as ‘big tooth.’ The waters of the earth during that time were teeming with beasts just as ferocious as their better known counterparts on land.
The mission of the SouthFloridaScienceCenter and Aquarium (SFSCA) is to open every mind to science through the strategic programming of interactive exhibits, engaging community-based camps and events. Founded in 1959 and formally known as the South Florida Science Museum, the new SFSCA features more than 50 hands-on educational exhibits, an 8,000 gallon fresh and salt water aquarium featuring both local and exotic marine life, a digital planetarium, Conservation Research Station, Florida Exhibit Hall and an interactive Everglades Exhibit showcasing the richly diverse ecosystem that the Everglades water-environment supports. The SouthFloridaScienceCenter is located at 4801 Dreher Trail North, West Palm Beach and is open Monday – Friday from 10am-5pm, and on Saturday and Sunday from 10am-6pm. General admission to the ScienceCenter is $13.50 for adults, $10.00 for children three and up, and $12.00 for seniors 62+. ScienceCenter members and children under three are free. Planetarium shows and miniature golf are not included in general admission.
For more information about the South Florida Science Center and Aquarium, please call 561-832-1988, or visit www.sfsciencecenter.org. Like the Science Center on Facebook at SF Science Center and follow SFSCA on Twitter @SFScienceCenter.