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Get Away

Make summer fun kids' play

With summer break upon us, here are three places where children can learn while enjoying the experience.

By SHARON KENNEDY WYNNE
Published May 25, 2006

TAMPA

The Big Three of Tampa's kid-friendly venues - the Florida Aquarium, Lowry Park Zoo and the Museum of Science and Industry - are rolling out new exhibits and attractions for summer.

The 10-year-old aquarium has revamped a large area of the Wetlands section to showcase home aquariums. MOSI has the Sesame Street characters teaching about the human body. And at the zoo, the Africa exhibit expands further with a jungle trek, along with the chance to ride a camel and feed a giraffe.

Florida Aquarium

The new display aims to show how to set up an exhibit at home.

"Aquariumania" opens Saturday, replacing the "Invaders" section of the Wetlands area with a display on the science, art, history, business and fascination with home fish tanks.

The exhibit was prompted by the local fish farmers whose $95-million in yearly sales keeps the world stocked with Nemos, guppies, goldfish and all sorts of tropicals. Fish are one of the top exports out of Tampa International Airport.

The "backstory" of this exhibit is a fish farmer who loves his profession so much that he has aquariums of all sort throughout his house.

You enter his front porch to find a koi pond and then go into a house equipped with a 23-foot tank that showcases dozens of commonly raised fish and plant life. Junior's bedroom has saltwater tanks. And the living room is decorated with eye-catching collections of glassfish and pufferfish and amazing varieties of goldfish.

"It's kind of like dog breeders," said Eric Hovland, a marine biologist who helped set up the exhibit. "You know how they'll keep breeding a dog until his ears are just a certain way or the head is a certain shape? Fish breeders do that, too. So you start with a regular goldfish and you keep working on it and you end up with one with a funny looking head or bug eyes or brilliant colors."

As a design element, silvery glassfish and glass catfish that look like X-rays appear especially artful when displayed in a simple tank of clear ice cube-shaped stones. Another tankful of angelfish of various colors and patterns looks like an art deco statement.

Not only is it funky decor, but it works for the fish too, Hovland said, because they thrive better in schools of their own kind.

Included in the exhibit are touch-screen computer games that teach kids which fish are compatible in a tank, a video on the world of fish farms and a real feeding frenzy when kids pay 25 cents to feed thousands of fish.

MOSI

You will lose more than 2.2-million skin cells during a visit to the new exhibition "Sesame Street Presents: The Body." But don't worry: That's normal, and it's not even enough to fill a bottle cap.

If the cadavers of MOSI's highly popular "Bodies" exhibition are too creepy for your kids, then Sesame Street offers a tot-sized lesson in how the body works and how to keep it healthy at the Kids in Charge area of interactive displays for 2- to 8-year-olds.

On Saturday, the museum will hold a family expo from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with summer camp information and health screenings and a visit by the Disney Fun Squad from 1 to 3 p.m.

Elmo will be there, and parents can find a schedule of the red guy's appearances throughout the day at mosi.org. Children get in free Saturday with paid adult admission, but it's an extra $4 to see the Sesame Street exhibit.

Once there, they can play games like Brain Bingo and hit Grover's Dance Party, count organs with the Count, or spin Oscar's Sneeze Machine where they spin a wheel to irritate a big nose that actually sneezes on them.

"What kid doesn't live to be sneezed on?" said Tanya Vomacka, communications manager at MOSI. "But in all seriousness, it's a chance for kids to learn about making healthy choices through the characters they love on Sesame Street."

The exhibit continues through Sept. 4.

Lowry Park Zoo

The zoo sports a new Safari Africa collection of exhibits and rides on several acres of natural habitats.

Here, visitors can feed giraffes, amble along atop a camel or take a tram ride through the African exhibits, though there's an extra fee for each. Or, with the purchase of an $18 wristband, rides are unlimited.

The giraffes step right up to be fed a $2 cracker ($5 for three). Watch out, though. The long-necked lovelies have ginormous tongues that wrap around an outstretched hand.

The camel rides are $3.

The Safari Ride ($3 a trip) takes place on an open-air tram, like the ones that shuttle people across vast parking lots. A guide narrates as it winds through the elephant yards and gets quite close to the zebras, camels, Watussi cattle, the ostrich, white rhinoceros and warthogs.

It lasts about 15 minutes, but offers a close look at the baby elephant Tamani and the knowledge that zebras are actually brown and white, not black and white. Your eyes trick you.

The other Africa additions of note: a chance to touch and feed a rhino and an adorable collection of meerkats who were made famous by Nathan Lane as Timon in The Lion King.

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The Florida Aquarium, 701 Channelside Drive, Tampa. (813) 273-4000 or www.flaquarium.org. Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m daily. Admission: $17.95, $14.95 seniors, $12.95 ages 2-11, younger than 2 free.

The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), 4801 E Fowler Ave., Tampa. (813) 987-6100 or www.mosi.org. Hours: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Fridayand 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Extended hours for Bodies exhibit only. Admission: $14.95-$29.95 general, $13.95-$27.45 seniors and $12.95-$24.95 ages 2-12, depending on package purchased; younger than 2 free.

Lowry Park Zoo, 1101 W Sligh Ave., Tampa. (813) 935-8552 or www.lowryparkzoo.com. Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Admission: $14.95, $13.95 seniors, $10.50 ages 3-11.

[Last modified May 24, 2006, 14:09:47]