whales and such (Yoo Hooo! Monterey Bay Aquar-i-um...)

 Isaac this past July on a whale watching trip in the Monterey Bay

My friend Kate (geez, I have the coolest friends) has an article in the new Monterey County Weekly about whale watching in our bay this summer, which has been fantastically stellar (modify superlatives? why yes, I think I will, thank you.).

In one paragraph, Kate states, "Connecting with nature is the best way to inspire children to grow up committed to conservation, according to educator David Sobel, author of Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education. It’s crucial to give children a chance to build a lasting, nourishing love of the wild before they are burdened with worries about overwhelming environmental problems. Observing nature can also help lengthen attention spans and combat digital addiction." (emphasis mine)

Back in April of this year I wrote a couple pieces about my feelings on the new exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and how I thought they missed the mark for kids, making much the same point Kate does. Jenny Sayre Ramberg of the Aquarium picked up the blog piece right away, and we proceeded to have an interesting discussion within the comments. I also wrote a follow-up blog on the subject. That is as far as I got at the time. Until now.

Besides Kate's article which gave me renewed interest and vigor in the subject, I am rather concerned about what might be happening as the MBA takes down the beloved Outer Bay tank for the next 10 months to revamp it into the "Open Sea" exhibit coming in July 2011. First, let me say that the Outer Bay is/was a classic. In place since 1996, it is an enormous wall of glass where you can watch from ground level or sit upstairs in the dark and take in hammerheads, tuna, rays, and an amazing array of amazing creatures go on by. The balcony seats are the best in the house, in my opinion. I've been taking Isaac there since he was 3 months old. The beauty is unmatched, but more, the serenity is untouchable.

With the new and "improved" exhibit, they promise to address climate change and plastics pollution, as "as always" point to positive solutions. So my question again is HOW will that happen? In what FORM and in what ORDER at EYE LEVEL will these things come at us? I am also not comforted by the dangling carrot of more "multi-media experiences." Again, in my past discussion of this topic, I stated that I thought the screens were being a little too heavily relied on and upstaging the animals themselves. I don't want to play a game about a sea turtle, I want to watch one swim by. I don't want to be sucked in (and have my child sucked in) to a video of the sunfish, when -- if the tourists would quick flashing their bloody cameras for a second -- one might swim by in the flesh.

My aquarium renewal notice just arrived in the mail...I'm no Julie Packard when it comes to my ability to financially support this resource, but still. I need to know how my money will be spent.

Jenny, I think I will have to belatedly take up your offer to give you a ring at the aquarium. Hope to talk to you soon.

more on that aquarium exhibit and beyond

I'll admit that I did not view the new exhibit very carefully this first time around. It was busy, and my guardedness around what Isaac might take in led me to steer more quickly through it than I otherwise might have. I'm also not in favor of the aquarium saying nothing on hard truths and thorny topics. But I am still troubled. It's kind of a “first do no harm” kind of issue.

Maybe it's a matter of what is presented in which form and in which order that needs review when we're thinking about serving a variety of ages and abilities to process this information. There may be, as the website quote I included in the last post suggests, lots more positive change stories enveloped in this new exhibit than were obvious to me. However, if they are mainly textual, that is not – even with a mama reading along – what my young child is going to take away from the experience.

There are all kinds of learners out there. But I'm going out on a limb here to say that a majority in our society might fall into the categories of visual and experiential. What you see and what you experience make the biggest, earliest impressions.

The same might be true for my college-age students. I critique the aquarium's exhibit, not from a place of knowledge, but from one of struggle. I battled how to present information for 15 weeks during my fall “environmental writing class.” For these kids, the dictate of the day is “save the planet.” And, believe me, they are over it. Yawn. Apathy is the top layer of all those other potentially negative outcomes like fear, hopelessness, etc. With the readings I required, it was a constant push/pull on looking for hard-hitting information and looking for uplifting outcomes. I can't be sure that any of it made any huge impression. But then there were the other assignments. The ones outside of the books.

I have a lot of doubts about teaching. A lot. Doubts that surface when I think about doing it, while I'm doing it, after I get my student evaluations, doing it in combination with real life lessons, in settings where grading becomes the salient carrot on the proverbial stick. I could go on. But I know a few things for certain that are good, solidly good stuff, the stuff they might even remember for years to come and that wouldn't have happened without the environment writing class we created together.

Things like two of my students touring Jeffers' Tor House guided by one of the most passionate, endearing local poets I know, who generously gave of his time to touch their lives. Like one of my students who wrote past her language issues and into a piece about a life-changing encounter with dolphins in a way that was so moving it brought both of us to tears. Like students using the “idle time” assignment to sit quietly and discover for the first time places and their own thoughts they'd rushed past for months. Like the students that found the thrill and vitality behind reading their own work aloud into a microphone for an eager crowd.

I know these things were good mostly because the students told me so. In weak moments, even these pierced angels of cynicism can admit when they've experienced something that has entered their hearts.

One day, I had made my class read excerpts from Edward Abbey and Bill Bryson on the same night. This was, one: curious because of their screamingly different approaches to writing, and two: dreadfully mean (according to my students) because they were each rather long passages.

One of my students, in discussing Abbey out there on his own among the rocks and coyotes, and Bryson with his page after page dedicated to his fear of bears along the Appalachian Trail, brought up the fact that nature for her is just downright “scary.”

“Pretty hard to save something you're afraid of, huh?” I tried. A stillness dipped into the room for a moment, a just-perceptible beat of quiet. The girl under direct address nodded slowly.

I would argue the same goes for climate change. If we are in a state of fear, we are much less likely to be able to do something about it. Far be it from me to argue for the All-American happy ending. Honesty is a bad habit of mine, truly. But it does seem like taking another look at “cheery” messages, might be worth our while.

Why I feel the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new exhibit is damaging to children and, consequently, their mission of ocean conservation

Isaac could hardly wait to see the flamingos. In the world of animal cool, tall pink birds standing on one leg are solidly in the range of “very” for my boy.

And there they were. A couple anyway, visible on occasion over the heads of the spring break crowd. And a couple of spoonbills – equally cool. And a scarlet ibis or two. The rosy feathers of them all announcing the nature's proclamation on fashion – gaudy is IN.

I didn't point out to him the water mark painted on the glass denoting the predicted water level in the near distant future that towered well over the noisy group gathered to capture these birds on their iphones.

Then there was the graveyard. An animated video spoke about the calamitous fates of various sea creatures while all around it were “tomb stones” etched with names like “sea anemone,” as if we'd accidentally wandered into a suburban Halloween display.

Isaac stood staring at the short loop of a wall-sized film about the domino disasters surrounding the lifestyle of the Inuit people and their natural resources three times through and would have stayed for goddess knows how much longer if I hadn't pulled him away. “Did you understand that?” I queried. “No.” he told me, and I did my best to fill in a few elements I felt comfortable enough explaining.

There were also some penguins. Isaac took note, but he can visit the ones on permanent exhibit upstairs most any time. There was the cow with the gas mask and the note about biofuel - relatively amusing and positive.

More screens flashed at us and pronouncements of doom writ large (literally) along the narrow passageways before we got to the two sea turtles swimming back and forth in an unadorned tank and Isaac whined that he was hungry.

Here is how the aquarium's webpage bills their newest exhibit which they've titled “Hot Pink Flamingo”: “Amazing animals will capture your heart in our new 7,000-foot special exhibition. Take a trip through our galleries—and across the globe—and discover how climate change is affecting ocean life. Along the way, you'll meet people and communities who are reducing their carbon pollution, and learn about the small changes we can all make to help the oceans.”

Hmm. Did we see the same thing? Cuz what I experienced had little to do with flamingos, or capturing anyone's heart. We've determined that I'm not against things political. Yet, when I view this from the perspective of a five-year-old, as best I can, I see the potential for instilling fear, confusion, hopelessness, resignation. Come to think of it, when I look at it from the perspective of a 40-year-old, I see potential for instilling, let's see, fear, confusion, hopelessness, resignation...

My son needs to fall madly in love with flamingos. Period. Step one in his generation saving anything. He's five. He does not need messages about drowning polar bears just yet. He can't do anything about it. And what he can do, believe me, he does. I have picked up more nasty garbage because my son has guilted me into it than I care to remember right now.

I feel strongly that the beloved world-class aquarium in our backyard as slipped off the track on this one.

So what is the solution? PG-13 aquarium exhibits? I don't think so. But I feel like before we can solve our planet's problems, we have to get together on how to talk about this.

I have more to say on the college-aged perspective after teaching “environmental creative writing” last semester, but, for now, enough. To be continued...?