Heal the Bay Blog

Today’s blogger is Tara Crow, our Aquarium’s public programs manager.

I took a quick pause from my other work duties this morning to find something fun and exciting to post on the Aquarium’s Facebook Wall.  Checking around, it seemed like a quiet news day on the marine science front and I was struggling with my task. Staff member and education specialist Amanda Jones walked into the office to stretch her legs when she noticed something funny walking by outside.  

“Is that a crab?” she asked.  Sure enough, a rogue, striped shore crab had somehow found its way, a quarter mile from the pier pilings where it should be living, to the front of our Aquarium. Coincidentally, Amanda had arrived at just the right moment to see the crab walking by our office.  

One lost little crab rescued from in front of the Aquarium

The crab was stalking along in the open area next to a busy footpath and the pier deck stairs that has been getting quite a bit of traffic during the spring break rush.  A few of us decided to go out to check on the little crab.  Striped shore crabs can spend days out of water if they’re not exposed to direct sun and this crab appeared to be in good shape, other than being totally covered in dirt and dust.  I grabbed the crab (who turned out to be a female), brought her inside and placed her in a beaker of salt water to clean her off.  She seems to be doing just fine now.  Our best guess as to how she made it to the front of the Aquarium is that either she was dropped by a bird, or someone had pulled her from a pier piling.  

As a happy ending to the story, the once-lost crab is now safe and sound in the Aquarium and will be making herself at home in our touch tanks where she will be well fed and kept safely away from predators.  Be sure to stop by and meet our newest crustacean local and help us come up with a name for this little rescuee.

Plan your next visit now.

This is the final installment of a four-part series on the many changes the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium has undergone since March 1, 2003, when Heal the Bay took over management and ownership of the marine education center. This blog was authored by Aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak.

Pollution prevention and environmental stewardship are two messages infused into the programs at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium. From learning about storm drains vs. sewers in our field trip education program, to training volunteers to educate the public about our Beach Report Card, the “Pollution Corner” plays an integral role in educating the students and adults about the impacts humans can have – both positively and negatively – on the ocean environment. This exhibit has been transformed into the perfect platform for discussing the latest in plastic bag legislation, but it took awhile for the display to become the popular spot it is today.

The pollution corner, an oddly-shaped area in the far corner of the gallery, has undergone a few variations. When Heal the Bay originally took over the facility it was the UCLA Ocean Discovery Center’s donor wall, which was painted a bright shade of goldenrod. One of the first designs integrated into the corner consisted of an interactive trash timeline, a storm drain versus sewer poster, images of the impacts of pollution on marine life and an eight-foot tall, three-dimensional sculpture of a storm drain with an imbedded video monitor. New teaching elements were introduced along the way including a “butt-o-meter,” a tall acrylic cylinder that was filled to the top with cigarette butts to show just how many were picked up during a beach cleanup, followed by information regarding our partnership with Monterey Bay Aquarium’s seafood watch program.

The Pollution Corner before and after renovation

After many years of trying to figure out what would work well in this challenging space, we enthusiastically settled on the latest rendition. The current pollution corner includes an open ocean exhibit with a sea jelly kreisel (a round tank specially designed to protect the fragile structure of a jelly) filled with majestic moon jellies. Floating inside a tank alongside the kreisel are the remnants of plastic bags and balloons. This exhibit demonstrates the similarities between sea jellies and plastic marine debris in the ocean environment, allowing the visitor to understand how marine life can mistake plastic debris for food, often resulting in death through starvation and choking. A three-dimensional color mural, which also illustrates the negative impact of plastic debris on marine life, is highlighted as well.

I hope you will drop by Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium and experience everything it now has to offer after years of improvements.

Read part three of our four-part series.

This is the third installment of a four-part series on the many changes the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium has gone through since March 1, 2003, when Heal the Bay took over management and ownership of the marine education center. Today’s blogger, Aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak, recounts some of the not-so subtle modifications.

The exterior and interior of the facility has undergone a variety of design and color changes in the past nine years. When I first arrived at the Aquarium, it was decked out in traditional UCLA blue and gold. And growing up with a father whose mantra was “Root for UCLA and anyone playing against USC!” – I didn’t mind seeing those colors that had surrounded me for many years.

But after settling in and infusing Heal the Bay’s mission into everything we did, we decided to create an exterior that not only called attention to the facility, but also used that space to educate. We designed a variety of concepts and color schemes for exterior paint, patio banners, sail fin banners and pole flags and decided to use the patio banners to educate the general public about the scale of the marine life in the Santa Monica Bay.

That same father who rooted for UCLA at the 50-yard line was also a teacher who taught me to look for and leverage every teachable moment available—even the ones that didn’t seem obvious at first. So I was excited about the educational banner idea and the staff were eager to debut this new addition. Never did I think it would backfire quite like it did. Many people saw the outline of a juvenile grey whale at 15 feet and a sea lion at six feet and were disappointed to learn that we housed neither of those species in our 4,500-square-foot marine education center—there were even visitors that asked for their $2 entry fee to be refunded. Best laid plans…

The Aquarium interior before and after renovation

The interior of the facility has also been renovated numerous times; the original color scheme of black ceilings, black exhibit bases and grey floors was designed so visitors would feel they were stepping into an underwater world. The feeling of being under the sea was definitely infused into the facility, but again the opportunity to use the interior — not just the exhibits — as a teaching canvas was the driving force for the remodel. We painted the interior, worked to create new colorful exhibit banners, remodeled exhibit bases using recycled materials and installed a new sandy bottom-colored floor.

In December 2008, the installation of a carpet made of recycled material and flooring from recycled tires in our classroom added a new, fresh and clean look for the interior. That year, when we reopened after the holidays with the new design, the general public, teachers and students complimented the interior and a number visitors asked if we had expanded.

While we haven’t expanded our footprint, through creative use of every square inch of the Aquarium, we have managed to expand visitors’ knowledge of the local marine environment.

Read part two of the four part series.

This is the second installment of a four-part series on the many changes the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium has undergone since Heal the Bay took over management and ownership of the marine education center.  Aquarium Director Vicki Wawerchak shares her memories of the first major change in the space, which were designed to make our space more child-friendly.

One of the first, staff-driven, facility enhancement projects was retiring the UCLA Ocean Discovery Center’s giftshop/bookstore and creating the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium’s Kids’ Corner in its place.

After the transfer of management from UCLA to Heal the Bay in 2003, Heal the Bay closed the Aquarium to the general public (but continued to offer previously scheduled field trip education programs) and during that time, we reorganized both our exhibits and organizational structure. The Kids’ Corner was created as an interactive space to engage families and some of our youngest visitors, encouraging them to understand the ocean environment and become pint-sized stewards. In that spirit, the space was converted to inspire the next generation of marine biologists and the corner has undergone many changes since 2003 (including our notorious octopus-triggered flood).

The first iteration included two exhibits—an octopus and a phylum discovery tank, IKEA kid-sized furniture and rugs, a small selection of environmentally-themed books, a chalkboard wall in the shape of a fish and a puppet theater. The entire corner was prepped, painted, stocked and maintained by staff and the reaction from the public was overwhelming. Since that time we were able to hire HOK, the global architecture firm specializing in planning and design, to design a Kids’ Corner that is now one of the more popular areas of the Aquarium for families with young children.

The Kids’ Corner before and after renovation

The space is supplied with marine-themed books (in both English and Spanish), puzzles and games and young visitors delight in discovering the toys stashed in pint-sized drawers designed for their exploration, or putting on a puppet show using a barrel full of sea creature puppets. It provides a fun, interactive, educational experience that is different and yet complements what’s happening in the other areas of the Aquarium.

The Kids’ Corner has become instrumental to the Aquarium’s success at reaching a wider variety of audiences. It allows families an area for younger children to play or read a story, while older siblings explore more advanced displays or interact with volunteers in the Aquarium gallery. When I see siblings sitting together on the bench reading stories to each other or hear an elaborate puppet show taking place with different voices and names of puppet characters, I know the facility has succeeded in reaching this younger set of visitors. This is an important task for the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium as we understand that it is these younger visitors who educate their parents on environmental issues and on whom we are going to rely in the future to continue to conserve and preserve the ocean environment.

Read part one of the four part series.