Ocean view

A 45-foot whale replica greets visitors to a new hall at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. The 23000-square-foot Sant Ocean Hall, which opened this fall, contains 674 prehistoric and contemporary marine specimens and models, including a re-created Indo-Pacific reef with about 74 live species. The $49 million project was funded by $15 million from philanthropists Roger and Vicki Sant, $21 million from federal appropriations, and other donors, for what museum director Cristián Samper calls “the most ambitious renovation in the museum’s history.”

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration created display software for a 360-degree, six-foot-wide sphere (see figure) that uses animation and narration to show, among other things, how heat and mass transport processes contribute to the ocean’s food cycle and how the ocean influences climate change. Interactive exhibits invite visitors to, for example, play the role of an ocean scientist or fisherman or take a virtual underwater dive with a marine scientist.

Mary Glackin, NOAA’s deputy undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere, says ocean research and public education are important “if we hope to manage and protect our largely unknown ocean that we rely on for life itself.”