SCIENCE & EDUCATION CENTER

These exhibits and interactive displays are being designed to provide a worthwhile visitor experience independent of whether there are animals in rehabilitation. Exhibit development is also taking into account the need to have constantly changing experiences for returning visitors. Changing images and content will reflect the different stranding seasons and the different species that strand.

The visitor experience will begin on the plaza outside the entrance to the NMLC. Here visitors can see and touch life-size replicas of the marine animals common to the region and view weatherproof panels that describe the animals, their biology, ecology, migration patterns, feeding strategies, etc. Individual focused sound systems will bathe the viewer in the sounds of the animal in the ocean. The plaza will be visible from the street and promises to become a gathering point for the area.

In the marine animal hospital displays will inform about the rehabilitation process and the care that each animal is receiving. The displays will include personal medical histories, including the particulars of the stranding events, and a diagnosis and prognosis for each animal.

Each exhibit area, beginning with the outdoor plaza, presents an opportunity for corporate visibility or individual donor recognition.

For school groups, the NMLC will construct a three-part experience:

1. Activities/information in the classroom before a visit.

2. A visit to the center with organized inquiry-based activities

3. Follow-up activities/information for the teacher to use in the classroom after the visit. Materials and activities will be developed by the NMLC education coordinator in collaboration with teachers.

Exhibit Content
Each of the themes listed above for the exhibits and displays has several content categories:

1. Marine animals commonly found in the New England region
· Characteristics of mammals: dolphins, seals,   and whales are mammals, not fish
· Characteristics of marine turtles; differences   between marine and land turtles
· Physical descriptions: size, weight, size at birth,   stages of maturation, etc.
· Migration patterns - especially those that bring   animals to the northwest Atlantic
· Feeding strategies
· Breeding, birthing, parenting
· Adaptations to life in the ocean
· How their unique physiology jeopardizes their   life when they come ashore

2. Marine animal strandings
· When is a marine animal stranded
· Mass strandings and single strandings
· Beach assessment - the biology/physiology, the decision-making process
· Transport strategies and devices
· The stranding network - organizations and volunteers
· Stranding patterns
· Historical evolution from killing whales and seals for personal/commercial gain to today's attitude   of providing the most humane care
· Theories of causes for marine animal strandings
· What to do - and not to do - when you see a stranded marine animal

3. The human impact on the ocean and the marine animal environment
Known:
· entanglements: fishing gear, plastic frisbees and six-pack rings
· ingestion: plastics, balloons, other materials that don't disintegrate in the ocean
· Boat and ship strikes, propeller cuts
Unknown:
· disease agents that flourish in water altered by man: land run-off, higher than normal nutrient   levels, temperature alteration by commercial shore-line activities
· pollutants and contaminants introduced by human activity: boating, shore-line development
What people can do

4. The value of rescue and rehabilitation
· Advancement of knowledge about marine animals and their care
· Contributions to species conservation
· Importance of animals to the quality of human life

Exhibit sketches by Chermayeff, Sollogub and Poole, Inc. Boston, MA