Celebrate World Oceans Day at Seacoast Science Center

Kick off your family’s summer travels by celebrating the ocean with a day of sea-related activities. Seacoast Science Center’s World Ocean Day, June 5, is filled with learning experiences and plenty of hands-on fun, with everyone learning about the ocean and climate.

Walk through Blue Ocean Society’s life-sized inflatable whale and get an inside view of how baleen whales eat and digest their food. Naturalists will lead seaside explorations of tidal pools, and you can participate in ocean cleanup activities and play a round of Ocean Trivia. Scientists, divers, artists and conservationists will be on hand, with learning stations about protecting the ocean found throughout the center. The center’s Marine Mammal Rescue team will also tell how they save injured whales and seals.

World Ocean Day is not the only time to visit Seacoast Science Center and experience the new exhibit hall opening this month. The large Our Dynamic Gulf of Maine hall is filled with interactive exhibits and teaching stations to share with your children and learn about the role of oceans in our everyday lives.

These include Captured in Currents, an exhibition about the tropical fish and sea life riding north on the Gulf Stream, and Coastal Invaders, an exhibition about invasive species endangering the area’s natural sea life. The Lobster Trap is all about lobsters, and videos in Stories of Urgency and Hope discuss the challenges and solutions related to warming and rising seas through real-life stories.

The center’s other display areas are filled with hands-on and get-wet activities for all ages, including the popular touch tanks filled with starfish, sea urchins, baby lobsters and hermit crabs hiding inside big snail shells. The tanks are manned by naturalists who engage kids by showing how starfish can grow new arms and how scallops snap shut when tickled.

Seacoast Science Center is in Rye, New Hampshire, just north of the Rye beaches and an hour north of Boston.