The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre is great location for anyone who would like to spend weekend learning a lot of new information and exploring the world. No matter whether you are a child or an adult, the education centre of the University of California, Santa Cruz invites you to immerse into the fantastic world of the oceanic biosphere. The visitor part of The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre is 20,000-square-foot and on its premises, you will have a chance of participating in real adventures!
Exhibits at The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre
The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre organises indoor and outdoor exhibitions which will let you understand better the work of the scientists who are specialising in conservation of the marine life as well as learn more about the amazing creatures living in the oceans.
Exhibit Hall
Deep-sea Coral and Squidtoons: Exploring Ocean Science with Comics are among the current indoor exhibitions at The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre.
Deep-sea Coral is a virtual exhibit dedicated to the almost 20-year exploration of the ancient inhabitants of the deep levels of seas and oceans. This digital project allows every visitor of the exhibition to participate in the studies of the marine ecosystems providing home for corals and commercially-important species of fish such as cod, groundfish or sea bass.
Squidtoons: Exploring Ocean Science with Comics is an amazing exhibition that will definetely be loved by your children. This exhibition has been created with a view of educating children abo9ut the importance of preserving the natural environment of seas and oceans. This goal has been achieved by making educational comics of a large format with beautiful illustrations and interesting scientific facts. The author of Squidtoons: Exploring Ocean Science with Comics is Garfield Kwan who is not aonly a talented illustrator but also a marine expert who is currently completing the marine fish psychology PHD.
Aquarium
Of course, The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre has its own aquarium with fantastic oceanic organisms. Here, you have a chance to see sea anemones, sea stars, hermit crabs, sea urchins and many other creatures. They are collected in the invertebrate pool.
There is also a shark pool in The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre’s Aquarium where you can not only observe sharks in a close proximity but even touch a swell shark which is a very friendly fish.
There are also other pools with jellies, eels, rockfish and decorator crabs.
All the species presented in The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre’s Aquarium are the inhabitants of the Monterey Bay.
Outdoor Giants
One of the most amusing exhibitions at The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre is Outdoor giants. Just imagine that the centre has one of the four blue whale skeletons present in North America and, in all likelihood, this one is the largest in the world! Undeniably, it is worth visiting The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre in order to have a chance to see this skeleton, however, it is not the only attraction of the Outdoor Giants exhibition.
Here, you can also see the Gray Whale Skeleton. Gray Whales are known for their unique feeding postures and the skeleton displayed in The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre depicts this feature of the species.
Furthermore, the exhibition presents the life-size replicas of Mirounga angustirostris which are also known as Northern elephant seals. This is the species residing in Santa Cruz and, in fact, the Año Nuevo Island is one of the largest rookeries of Northern elephant seals in the world.
Other exhibitions at The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre
There are also other exhibits presented at The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre such as Behind the Scenes dedicated to the technical issues of supplying the centre’s seawater system and the research areas of marine mammals. The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre also controls two protected outdoor habitats. The first one is a 45-acre classic coastal ecosystem typical for California whereas another one is a 25-acre lagoon system.
Events at The Seymour Marine Discovery Centre
The Marine Centre provides daily tours for groups and families and also hosts various events.
This is the place where you can not only see the scientific exhibitions but also participate in the photography and artwork events. Some examples of the past presentations held at the centre are Frans Lanting and Chris Eckstrom present: Journeys to the Ends of the Earth, Whimsical Visions of Undersea Life, Ket Tom-Conway (watercolor paintings), A Perfect Day for an Albatross, Caren Loebel-Fried (a presentation of an illustrated children’s book) and Radiographs from the California Academy of Science.
The centre also organises book signings and lectures. For example, the centre organised the Fish Physiology: Can a Fish Drink Too Much? lecture held by Garfield Kwan and In the Crosshairs: An Update on the Sea Otter Survival Story presented by Kim Steinhardt.