Just a few months ago in September, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) opened its doors on a project developed in conjunction with NOAA (the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The project took over five years of development and carried a hefty price tag of $49 million dollars, but what the NMNH created in the new Sant Ocean Hall demonstrates a new trajectory for museums that seems well worth the effort.

The Hall is the largest permanent exhibit the museum has to offer, and arguably the most cutting edge in technology. The Ocean Exhibit emphasizes the importance of oceanography by explaining it through the eyes of ecology, biology, and (albeit briefly) anthropology. This approach highlights the underlying goal of the Hall as showing the ocean as a collaborative system. Just like one exhibit (a rather impressive globe in which a series of educational movies are projected upon) says, all of the Earth’s oceans are connected. And within that massive ecosystem of water; human, plant, and animal life are linked together.

The display cases within the Hall follow this theme of partnership by tying together various mediums of information. For instance, one of the largest objects in the Hall is a 45-foot model of a North Atlantic right whale thoughtfully named Phoenix. While my personal interests lie more in distant past than present biology (I absolutely loved the exhibit on whale evolution: did you know whales used to have large razor sharp teeth before baleen?), Phoenix caught my eye for another reason.

What makes the story of Phoenix so well told is owed to the number of ways in which the museum tells it. Besides the impressive model of Phoenix suspended above the Hall’s floor; there are pictures, copies of sketches made by the real marine biologists who tracked Phoenix in the wild for 20 years, and even a device used to actually detect whales like Phoenix beneath the ocean’s surface.

The Phoenix exhibit is a mixture of information mediums that is echoed throughout other exhibits in the Hall. There are not just fossils, skeletons, and photographs of fascinating ocean life---there are also specimens. I, for one, never realized how small some sea creatures were until I saw the tiny jars that held their actual, preserved remains.

One of the most awing real-life specimens housed in the Smithsonian’s new Hall is a 36-foot long Giant Squid (the likes of which probably authored those 18th century horror stories of the Kraken). Reading about rare marine life like Giant Squid is one thing; actually seeing it is what brings the ocean to your front door. 

A massive coral reef aquarium, while only one tank of 1,500 gallons, puts the entire nearby Baltimore Aquarium to shame (and I would know since I just spent $25 and two hours in line last weekend to see it). Not only was the Sant Ocean Hall exhibit free and readily accessible, but also their incredible variety and vibrances of fish species were phenomenal. My only critique would be the inclusion of another informational display sign placed above the aquarium, as all of the tank information was on a waist-high sign perpetually covered up by a 5-year old boy calling for “Nemo” to come back, as he pressed his nose against the aquarium glass.

As you tour the Hall, diverse exhibits will take you to the ocean’s past, present, and future. The past is a 252 million year old asteroid that destroyed 95% of all ocean life (long before those young, 65 million year old dinosaurs) and the future looking possibly just as grim if the poor treatment of oceans stays its course. Human error (i.e. oil spills, pollution), increased water acidity and overfishing are just a few of the ways the ocean’s future has been put in jeopardy. The Sant Ocean Hall shows that not only do the sea animals and plants depend on the ocean’s health, but also people like the Nisqually Indian Tribe in Alaska. Unfortunately, there is only a small section dedicated to the anthropological maritime reaches of the ocean, but its import can be implied. We depend on the Earth’s oceans. We unequivocally have in the past, and we will continue to in the future, unless we are unable to.

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he Sant Ocean Hall is colorful and interactive, as a museum of the future should be. With the dwindling attention spans of children and adults, museums exhibits need to almost assault the senses with exciting education, rather than present people with dull lines of black and white fact-filled text. To really push the notion of a new wave of education taught through technological entertainment, eight massive projection screens play looping video of ocean life along the top walls of the exhibit Hall. Regretfully, while the screens are as equally impressive as they are immersive in putting you into your very own aquarium, they are hardly noticeable within the bright exhibit Hall. Money used here should either be placed elsewhere (e.g. take this technology to the ground and put more of it within the exhibits where we can see it) or the lights in the upper portion of the Hall dimmed.

The only disappointing aspect of the Sant Ocean Hall is its changing exhibit, currently displaying “Going to Sea”----an exhibit on maritime travel. It is limited in both its artifacts and information, dwelling too long on some periods of history and skipping over others entirely. Compared to the large, lively main exhibit hall, segmented just a half-wall away; the “Going to Sea” exhibit seemed dinky, dull and unimpressive. While this is unfair given the nearby grandeur of the Ocean Hall, it does not change the fact that most people seemed unsure if the changing exhibit was open or if it was an older area not yet updated or, worse, still under construction.

Despite a few minor criticisms, I found the Sant Ocean Hall really quite amazing. The History Channel short documentary showing in the Hall’s almost-theatre size exhibit is enthralling. The video globe mentioned earlier is an astounding piece of technology that is both visually and audibly stunning.  The Ocean Hall has transitioned the way information is transmitted to the public from the old and brought it into the new. No longer is learning about the world’s oceans tedious and boring. The NMNH’s new Sant Ocean Hall turns Ocean Education into what it should be: an enriching and mesmerizing experience. It will without a doubt entice young and old alike, bringing them away from the Science channel shows playing in their living room and into a real life, hands-on encounter at the Smithsonian.

All photographs are courtesy of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's photostream on Flickr.

For more information:

http://ocean.si.edu/ocean_hall/