As Campaign Hits $13.75 Million Mark, Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine Installs Maine Watershed Aquarium Tanks
Aquarium tanks sit outside the new Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine, awaiting the crane to raise them to the third floor science center of the facility, scheduled to open this spring.
A series of watershed aquarium tanks has been raised by crane to the third floor science center as the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine transitions from construction of its new 30,000 square foot facility to installation of exhibits. When the new facility opens in spring 2021, it will collectively contain a 100-seat state-of-the-art theatre, a 10,000 sq. ft science center, an entire floor devoted to arts, culture, and community, and over a 1/2 acre of outdoor play area. The seven aquarium tanks populate a 2,000 square foot watershed exhibit called From the Mountains to the Sea. Hosting daily environmental science education programs, it is designed to serve children, youth, families, and educators. The Museum & Theatre’s Capital Campaign to fund design and construction of the new facility has raised $13.75M of the $14M goal. With the help of the community, they hope to raise the remaining funds and cross the finish line by early spring.
“As part of our commitment to keep Maine an extraordinary place to be a child, our STEM education program includes teaching the founding principles of environmental stewardship to children and their families. We cultivate an understanding of animals and the natural world, we foster systems thinking, and we encourage action-oriented solutions to environmental challenges. With a true focus on environmental science and stewardship, Mountains to the Sea is an aquarium exhibit designed to empower visitors of all ages to become better stewards of our environment. In this way, we hope to contribute to the next generation of scientists, policymakers, and informed citizens,” said Executive Director Julie Butcher Pezzino.
“We could not have achieved this unique aquarium exhibit without the support of many generous corporate, foundation, and individual donors, especially the Poland Spring brand, part of Nestle Waters North America family, which is the lead sponsor of the space. They believed in this vision and stepped forward to support the project. Others that have sponsored individual tanks include Morton-Kelly Charitable Trust, Sam L. Cohen Foundation, and a number of generous Maine families. We can’t wait for people to enjoy all that this has to offer,” said Board Member and Imagine Capital Campaign Chair Barbee Gilman.
The aquarium exhibit continues the experiential learning throughout the Museum & Theatre. Although From the Mountains to the Sea will appeal to all ages, its central concepts and curriculum focus on water cycle, watersheds, ecosystems, and earth systems–concepts that are targeted by third- through fifth-grade learning results. Visitors will journey through a series of separate tanks that represent an interconnected watershed, exploring habitats and species through mountain lakes, waterfalls and rivers, down to the rocky shore and out to sea. Species will live in immersive tanks with environments designed to mimic those of lakes, ponds, streams, tidepools, and ocean floor, with habitats ranging from high-oxygen freshwater to saltwater. These tanks are for more than viewing; some facilitate closer looking and touching of certain species, for example, catsharks, skates, and horseshoe crabs. Visitors can connect with frogs, turtles, and many more species that are native to Maine. Visitors of all ages will be able to observe nature, test hypotheses, build curiosity, and experience unique, hands-on engagement with live and natural specimens creating life-long memories and building positive feelings toward science.
Local artist Kevin Hawkes is painting murals of specific Maine locations that will provide habitat backdrops to the watershed exhibit. These immersive murals enhance the multi-sensory nature of the exhibit environment and seek to inspire wonder.
In addition to the watershed exhibit, the remainder of the third floor is devoted to STEM education, helping families explore the nature of color, light, and photography in the Illuminate exhibit, as well as engineering and experimentation with the forces of gravity in the ball and water play exhibits.
Crane company employee considers next steps after guiding two of the Maine watershed aquarium tanks through the side of the building and onto the third floor STEM education center.
Background on Aquatic Exhibits at Museum & Theatre
After the Children’s Museum & Theatre moved into its Free Street location in 1992, its exhibits expanded to include a tide pool touch tank, an aquatic exhibit of yellow-bellied slider turtles, and an exhibit of frogs, such as American bullfrogs and green frogs. This was part of a larger STEM education and environmental stewardship program that also included curating and teaching with a beehive and a collection of live worms. In addition to having educators on staff with specialization in STEM education, the Museum & Theatre is licensed by the state and federal government for wildlife scientific collections and has partnered with Maine Audubon, Friends of Casco Bay, and other local environmental organizations for many years. The new facilities at the Thompson’s Point location will provide the STEM education program to greatly expand the opportunity to bring the Museum & Theatre’s sustainability and environmental stewardship philosophies to a much larger public audience.