Great Lakes Aquarium's Top 5 of 2013

'Tis the season for leftover cookies, days spent with family and making plans for the future.  It's also a traditional time to reflect on the year that was.

At Great Lakes Aquarium, 2013 was quite a year.  Between planning, designing, researching, educating and caring for animals we're stepping back to look at what we've done and what we're just getting started.

5.  The Gitchi Gummi Connection
In 2013, Great Lakes Aquarium launched its first-ever interactive videoconferencing program, bringing Lake Superior and freshwater education to students across the country and, potentially, the world. 

Our pilot program classes, Urgin' for Sturgeon and Aquatic Invaders, went live in early 2013, in K through 5 classrooms as far away as California.  

New classes such as Food Web In-Motion and Culvert Design & Engineering, with curriculum for middle and high school students helped us reach more than 700 students this year.

Stay tuned for new, fun classes for kids called Water is Weird and Totally Turtles.  Who doesn't love a good turtle story?

4.  Energy Efficiency Partnership

The water wall at Great Lakes Aquarium has been, from the beginning, the grand centerpiece of our facility's entrance. The massive display in the Aquarium's lobby has welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors with its symbolic homage to the waters of the world.  

Yet this year, something is different.  

New, dramatic, lighting which washes the wall in a cascade of colors provides not only a visual change, but a new direction in energy efficiency at Great Lakes Aquarium.

The ceiling-mounted LED system was recently installed with funding and design support from Minnesota Power's Power of One Business energy conservation program.   

It is one of several energy efficiency initiatives being undertaken through a unique partnership between Minnesota Power, the city of Duluth and the Aquarium.  The Aquarium has also installed variable speed drives on pumps that move water through its tanks and filtration systems.  Plans to upgrade lighting to LED throughout the building are underway with a long-term goal of reducing the building's electrical energy consumption by 30%. 

And, as projects are completed, Power of One rebates from Minnesota Power will be deposited into an energy-efficiency fund to help pay for future energy-saving upgrades.

3.  The Discovery Center
Education is at the heart of everything we do at Great Lakes Aquarium.  

Plans for a bright, spacious education center called the Discovery Center with three new classrooms, a teacher resource center and a distance-learning studio will help us enhance our ability to fulfill our mission in the years to come. 

The Discovery Center will double our available classroom space, allowing Great Lakes Aquarium to grow our increasingly popular educational programming.

While this is a 2014 project, much of the groundwork for the Discovery Center had to happen this year.  Great Lakes Aquarium received $125,000 in gifts and challenge grants from the Minnesota Power Foundation to make this vision a reality.  In the past month, the Aquarium met its $50,000 challenge for 2013 and is well on its way to meeting the 2014 challenge. 

Construction will begin in the coming months. 

2.  The Story of Shipwrecks Alive! 

Anticipation is building for the opening of our most ambitious, most extensive exhibit design since Great Lakes Aquarium opened its doors more than 13 years ago. 

The story of Shipwrecks Alive! started early in 2013 at the Capitol in St. Paul where, after months of planning, lobbying and presentations to legislative committees, Great Lakes Aquarium secured a $200,000 Legacy Funding Grant to bring home to the city of Duluth.  That grant, along with $50,000 in matching funds from the city's tourism tax surplus gave us the foundation to move forward on this huge project.

The $423,000 Shipwrecks Alive! project is being constructed in the Sandra and Roger Karon Exhibit Hall replacing Masters of Disguise, which closed November 7 after a more than three year run.  

Work began immediately.  Within 24 hours, Masters of Disguise was completely dismantled.  And construction of a wildly redesigned space continues.

Shipwrecks create hauntingly beautiful habitat for aquatic plants and animals.  Shipwrecks Alive! will explore these underwater ecosystems by focusing on three different wrecks, one in Lake Superior, one in the Mediterranean and one in the South Pacific.  

And the animals are already arriving.  The Aquarium has received dusky smooth-hound sharks, cownose stingrays and many tropical fish that will populate our Shipwrecks Alive! tanks.

The animals are currently housed in our holding room in the lower level of our facility.  Shipwrecks Alive! Sneak Peek tours are offered daily (free with admission) for visitors to get a look at our beautiful new residents before they go on exhibit.

1. Fire, Ice and the Rise of Life
Our crowning achievement of 2013 was a true labor of love for Great Lakes Aquarium.

The new exhibit, Fire, Ice and the Rise of Life opened to much fanfare in June of 2013, after months of intense work completed mostly by in-house staff.

Fire, Ice and the Rise of Life is an adventure through time, from lava flows to vast oceans to grinding glaciers, the exhibit explores the explosion of life in the region that became the Great Lakes. 

The spectacular centerpiece is a fossil cast of a Dunkleosteus skull, a ferocious-looking, ancient armored fish that grew to the size of a school bus. 

A grand opening celebration started with an unveiling and ribbon-cutting ceremony with Duluth Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors. 

An open house reception followed with members, special guests and dignitaries including Lieutenant Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon and Betty Ramsland, both Great Lakes Aquarium board members,  

Representative Mary Murphy and Minnesota Public Radio's Patty Mester, also a GLA board member,

and Duluth Mayor Don Ness with his son, Owen, who delighted in our new animals and dinosaur shadow puppets.  

As we look back we know none of our accomplishments and milestones would have been possible without the incredible support from our members, our city and our larger "community" across the country.  
 From all of us at Great Lakes Aquarium, thank you. 
2014 is going to be big.  
We're very excited to get to it.

Albino Mutant (not Ninja) Turtles

What's smaller than a house key, is painted but still lacks color?

This little guy.

This is one of two albino western painted turtles at Great Lakes Aquarium.

This is the other one.

  A woman in St. Paul found five albino hatchlings in her backyard.  Concerned about their ability to survive in the wild, she called the Department of Natural Resources.  The DNR came to her house and collected the turtles.  Shortly after that, two of them were placed here.  

The head of herpetology at the DNR felt Great Lakes Aquarium would be able to provide a life-long home for them and the turtles, in turn, would offer an educational opportunity to our students and the public. 

 

The genetic mutation behind albinism causes a lack of pigment in the skin – making these turtles appear white with red eyes.  However, their bottom shell (the plastron) still has markings of red and orange typical of Western Painted Turtles.
And these babies are growing!  When they arrived at Great Lakes Aquarium, a little over a month ago, they weighed approximately 4 grams each.  Today, one weighed in at 5.7 grams, the other 5.9 grams.  They're still tiny, adorable, and yes, smaller than a house key.
See? 

Currently, the albino western painted turtles live in a tank located in one of our classrooms.  They will need to grow in a healthy, protected environment for many years before they're able to go out on exhibit.  However, discussions are underway to build a space for them in front of the classroom window so they can be visible to the public.

If you'd like to learn more about these turtles, tune in to KBJR news, channel 6, tonight (Monday, Oct. 21) at 6pm.  They'll be featured on Nature Matters.

Coming Soon...The Freeway Show

When it comes to intelligence, what animals come to mind?
Chimpanzees?
Parrots?
Dolphins?

Turns out you'll need to add crows to that list.  Crows or corvids are considered to be among the world's most intelligent animals, according to recent studies.  In fact, their brain size (relative to their bodies) approaches that of some apes.

Great Lakes Aquarium has a crow in residence.  Freeway, an American crow like the ones you probably see and hear in your neighborhood, came to us about seven years ago.  He was found injured on a freeway (hence the name) and was taken in by a family who cared for him.  Since it is illegal to keep migratory birds as pets, he ended up here.  And he's been showing us just how much he can do ever since.  Part of his enrichment includes solving puzzles, completing tasks and opening containers.  The rewards for a job well done are always positive reinforcement and, of course, food.

Earlier this year, Freeway moved to the exhibit floor (Level 1) next to Otter Cove.  Now, he is nearly ready for his close-up.  His skills will soon be part of a Creature Feature program where he'll delight and wow visitors. 

Among his newly acquired skills, collecting "mail". 

 At the side of Freeway's exhibit we've designed a mail slot in which trainers (and soon, visitors) can insert "Freeway Bucks".  Freeway collects them and puts them in his trusty bucket.  He practiced today and, for the first time, took some bucks from a visitor.  Her name is Maarit and it happens to be her birthday!

We put together a fun video this week showcasing all the amazing things Freeway has learned in a relatively short period of time.  We think he's pretty special.  We hope you do, too.

How to Fix Your Time Machine

As folks know, we opened the Fire, Ice and the Rise of Life exhibit this spring. We’re so excited to have the gallery open and with a fresh face! 

When we design new exhibits, we think about the story, the look and feel of the space, the flow of people, the life support for the animals, the lighting, the interpretive programming…and we think about how best to reach people with different learning styles, backgrounds, reading levels and attention spans. People are often shocked to know that our signage is written at a 6th-8th grade reading level. Your local paper is written at about the same level. We try to present information in text, with a graphic AND often as a tactile manipulative experience (people can move the parts and experiment). Live animals count as an interactive experience too. The next time you’re in one of our newer exhibits, see if you can identify these different parts.

In Fire and Ice, one of our central themes is the exploration of geologic time. Have you thought about space and time? It can be a pretty mind boggling. It’s important to the story we tell in the exhibit that people do think about this. We planned on engaging people with geologic time in four different ways: through snap-shot stories in text, an outstretched arm graphic timeline, a narrated video and the hands-on manual operation of the “Time Machine”.

"Wait.What Time Machine?"

The Aquarium has a time machine?! How have I not heard about this? Sorry to get you all worked up. It’s really a big graphic belt that shows you how all of time and the sequence of events for the past 4.6 billion years are connected. Still super cool. Just not quite Michael J. Fox cool. Right now this exhibit is lying dormant behind brown paper.

Time machine in limbo. 

 And here’s why it still looks like this.

One of our goals was to re-use or re-purpose components of the original Origins gallery whenever appropriate. Three cheers for re-using and recycling! The time machine exhibit was one of those selected to stay as a compliment to other exhibit content. Remember those four engagements with geologic time we talked about?

As the exhibit project rolled along, the re-installation of the time machine seemed like it would simply require relocation of the exhibit structure, fresh paint and a quick reprint of the graphic belt. We should have known. We’re old pros at curve balls in exhibit design and construction…"hmmm…this tank won’t fit in the elevator"... It turns out that this “simple” re-install is not so simple after all.

Let me take you inside the time machine. 

The belt we are talking about is made of 37 feet of paper that has been stitched into a continuous loop. Text and graphics are printed on the belt in such a way that visitors are able to view about 4 feet of the image at a time through a plexiglass window. As visitors crank a hand crank, the belt winds its way over and around a series of drums, much the way serpentine belts work in your car. All of that hardware is behind the wall.

The paper timeline belt all rolled up for transporting.

The paper timeline belt unfurled on our office floor. 

Four of the eight drums that move the belt for viewing.
Two other sets of two are above and below this cluster.

When the exhibit was first installed (circa 2000), the paper belt kept slipping. There wasn’t enough friction between the belt and the drums to move it smoothly and steadily. After some initial problem solving, folks mounted the paper onto a rubber belt (actually lightweight thermoplastic) that provided more friction. Now the belt moved smoothly! One downside is that the added thickness caused the surface of the belt to rub ever so slightly on itself as it wound around the drums. After 13 years of use, the images were hard to read. 

There are two parts to Mission: Replace That Belt. 

The pretty part and the grippy part. Let’s tackle the grippy part first. Where could we get a new plastic belt? We reached out to our exhibit design friends at Split Rock Studios. Many of their staff were involved in designing and building the original Aquarium exhibits. They remembered it being a complicated project but didn’t remember where we got the belt in the first place. One of the biggest challenges (as touched on above) is getting the belt friction just right. We reached out to a few different production companies about printing on belts but all thought this was going to be really challenging or perhaps impossible to pull off.

After a bit more head scratching, our director had an idea. He once worked for the paper mill and he recalled the belts used to turn huge drums to convey the new paper. After a well-placed call to W.P. & R.S. Mars Company right here in Duluth, we now own a new 37.9 foot piece of lightweight thermoplastic to use as the grippy part of the belt!

Ok, now for the pretty part. 

The original belt was printed in 1999. At that time, the graphic design process was significantly different than it is today. In fact, the file for the belt graphic was so large that the exhibit design company couldn't store the complete file on their computer. It had to be broken into smaller pieces. While we have the original files, many of them are unreadable with our current graphic design software. Cue the sad trombone.

Sometimes stumbling blocks present you with opportunities. And that’s how we are looking at this project. We will be redesigning the complete belt, all 37 feet of it, to update the content and make it mesh with our new exhibit “look”.

We’re diving into that in a big way this week. Wish us luck. We’ll let you know when Time Machine 2.0 is open for business. 

Start thinking about how far back in time you’d like to go.

What's Good for the Goose

Funny things happen when you're plugging along, tending to daily business at Great Lakes Aquarium.
Sometimes that daily business can change...in an instant.
That happened today when a man strolling the lakewalk took an emergency detour into our facility.
There's a goose in distress.
He's in the lake and needs help, he said.

The first to respond was Jadell Cavallin.  At the Aquarium she works in our husbandry department, in animal care.  But she's also a certified wildlife rehabilitator who knows a thing or two about helping animals in distress.
It turns out the Canada Goose was in trouble.  A length of musky line that was hung up in the pilings near the shoreline became tangled around his neck.  His frantic attempts to swim away added immediacy to the situation.
After first putting on waders and attempting to reach the goose it became clear that more help was needed.
So, Jadell and Rob, our animal care volunteer, quickly changed into diving gear and headed out.

While the water was not deep, the rocks were slippery and the dive suits kept them safe and protected in chilly Lake Superior.

 Jadell was able to reach the goose quickly and wrap her arms around his wings while Rob helped her cut the line.

Success.  The goose was free, but clearly exhausted.  He swam to shore, but couldn't climb up on the rocks to rest.

So, Jadell helped him out.

Once on stable ground, the goose waddled away toward Bayfront Park.
Maybe to tell his friends what happened.
Maybe just to honk like a goose.

 Everybody loves a happy ending.

Anang and the Big Crate

I often wonder, or worry, what would happen if there was an emergency here at Great Lakes Aquarium. What would we do with all of the animals, or how would we save them? The USDA wonders that too. They check up on us twice each year to make sure we are keeping things clean, keeping good records of events, and of course, they look at our mammals.

So, we have come up with an evacuation plan for our animals. Right now, I am training Anang, our resident female river otter, to go in a crate so I can close her in and carry her to safety. Well, it might take two of us! The crate is large enough for her to fit in, plus her long tail! :)

How does one go about crate training a North American River Otter? Firstly, they are very curious creatures. They love new things, especially something they can go inside of, like a den. Crates are fun! Once she was used to the crate, I began training. The goal is to get her to go in the crate and turn around (so her tail gets in there!). Then, I'll close the door.

This is a work in progress. But, I will show you what we've done so far...

Anang is getting ready to start. (and obviously waiting for me to hurry up!)

 Anang just finished her first target at the lip of the crate. She is eating her treat (fish!). 

Halfway in!

Amost all the way in! 

Getting ready to turn around!

IN! 

 Eating her reward!

Great! 

And, this collage is the first day we tried it! She got it right away. 

The next thing we will work on is closing the door, then moving it around.

We have a daily Otter Program at 2pm, or 1:30 on Wednesdays, so come in and see Anang! I would love to answer any questions you have about her!