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museumplanetarium.org

museumplanetarium.org

Museum of Coastal Carolina & Ingram Planetarium

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Pre-Teaching Ideas for Museum

Here are some ideas that will help to maximize your students’ experience when visiting the Museum of Coastal Carolina.

A great time to start discussing your field trip is driving over the Odell Williamson Bridge to Ocean Isle Beach. Tell your students ahead of time that they will be going over a large, high bridge that connects Ocean Isle Beach to the mainland. The body of water they will be crossing is the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The Waterway is 3,000 miles long. It runs the length of the Eastern seaboard from Maine to Florida. It is part man-made and part natural. Questions to ask your students as they cross the bridge are:

  • Do you see water?
  • Do you think it is high tide or low tide?
  • Is it the ocean?
  • Can you see the ocean?
  • Do you see any animals? Boats? People? Birds?

Once you arrive at the Museum, a staff person will meet you in the parking lot while the students line up. We will then divide into smaller groups and begin to tour the Museum’s galleries.

Changing Tides Gallery

  • Shark jaws
  • Megabites shark teeth exhibit
  • Wave machine
  • Tide machine
  • Shore is Shifting exhibit
  • Herman and NC whales

Vocabulary:

Erosion, wave, energy, crest, undertow, frequency, tsunamis, rip current,  sand bar, earthquake, wavelength breaker, trough, long shore drift, surf, barrier beach, dune, hurricane, high tide, low tide

Discussion:

  • What is an ocean wave?
  • What things determine a wave’s height, frequency, and wavelength?
  • What happens to a wave as it approaches the shoreline? Why?
  • What are tsunamis?
  • How does the energy of tides and waves affect the shoreline?
  • What is a rip current?
  • What precautions can you take when swimming in the ocean?
  • Why is it important to control the pollution of our oceans?
  • What can each person do to help reduce pollution?

For more information about tides, go to

http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/8r.html

Shark Teeth and Jaws

  • Look at the shark jaws. Notice that sharks have several rows of teeth.
  • When one tooth falls out, the one behind replaces it.
  • Sharks have an infinite number of teeth. They grow new teeth throughout their lives.
  • Many students will notice that sharks’ teeth are white on the jaws but black when found on the beach. This is because the teeth on the beach have become fossils.

Waterways Gallery

  • Litterbug Hall of Shame
  • North Carolina River Basins
  • Pollution: Streams to the Sea

For more information about North Carolina river basins and non-point pollution, go to

http://www.eenorthcarolina.org/public/ecoaddress/riverbasins/riverbook.pdf

http://www.epa.gov/owow/NPS/whatis.html

Green Swamp

In our Green Swamp diorama, students always ask about the animals. They were alive at one time. After they died of natural causes or an accident, they were stuffed and mounted so that we could view, study, and learn about them here in the Museum.

A swamp is a wet habitat that provides a home for a large variety of plants and animals. Our diorama shows wetlands, swamp, and woods and displays the animals of Coastal Carolina in their natural habitats. You will see alligators, snakes, wild turkeys, water birds, flying insects, and mammals. A good activity to do with the students is to try to categorize the animals by their class.

Vocabulary:

Swamp, forest, beach, habitat, mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile, fish, survive, predator, prey, food chain, insect, shelter, camouflage, similar, different, shellfish

Discussion:

  • How many snakes do you see in the swamp?
  • Which animals live primarily in the water?
  • Which animals can climb trees?
  • What types of insects do you see?

For more information about North Carolina’s Green Swamp, go to

http://www.northcarolinaoutdoors.com/places/coast/greenswamp.html

Seashore Gallery

  • Touch Tank with live sea animals
  • Animal relationships and habitats
  • Movement patterns and feeding habits
  • Personalities and peculiarities of the animals in the Touch Tank
  • Shell collection with over 200 shells
  • Fossil collection
  • Minerals found in one cubic yard of water
  • Touch animals in Touch Tank with docent’s assistance

Touch Tank rules to discuss with your students:

  • Wait for instructions before putting your hands in the water
  • These are living creatures and you need to respect them
  • Keep all animals under water
  • Do not touch the fish. Touching fish removes their protective coating and they could become sick.
  • Do not pull animals that have attached themselves to the side of the Touch Tank. Pulling an animal from the side of the Touch Tank could injure it.
  • Use one hand and two fingers to touch animals

Vocabulary:

Anemone, hermit crab, scotch bonnet, bivalve, invertebrate, sea urchin, camouflage, mollusk, egg cases, conch, horseshoe crab, sea star, fossil, blenny, univalve, whelk, tentacles, habitat

Discussion:

  • What do these animals need to live? (Water, sunlight, food)
  • How are these animals similar? How are they different?
  • What is the difference between a bivalve (mollusk with two shells) and a univalve (mollusk covered with a single coiled shell)?
  • What shells do you recognize? Which shells have you found on the beach?
  • What is the official North Carolina state sea shell? (Scotch Bonnet)
  • What is the official South Carolina sea shell? (Lettered Olive)

For more information about Coastal Carolina sea shells, go to

http://www.North-Carolina-sea-shells.blogspot.com

http://www.ncbeaches.com/Features/sealife/seashells

http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/beach_kids/sea_shells/lettered_olive/ 

Ocean Reef Gallery

This gallery features a diorama of natural and man-made reefs that could be found 65 miles off the North Carolina coast. It includes:

  • Life-size models of whales and sharks
  • Fish with distinctive characteristics
  • Rays, octopus, sea turtles, eels

Vocabulary:

Reef, extinct, microscopic, camouflage, food chain, pollution, vertebrate, invertebrate, adaptation, habitat, plankton, coral

Discussion:

  • 71% of the earth’s surface is water.
  • All oceans and seas are connected.
  • People around the world depend on fish as a main source of food.

For more information about oceans, go to

http://www.mos.org/oceans/

Barrier Island Gallery

 This gallery features

  • Shipwright’s tools
  • Navigational equipment
  • Model ships
  • Differences between land and sea turtles
  • Life cycle of Loggerhead sea turtles
  • Life-size model of a Loggerhead mother sea turtle
  • Video filmed on Ocean Isle Beach of a mother sea turtle laying her eggs in the sand and the baby turtles hatching 55 days later
  • Sea Turtles: A Game of Survival – A hands-on game that explores the dangers a baby sea turtle faces once it hatches

 

Vocabulary:

Dunes, endangered, flippers, hatchling, island, loggerhead, nest, tracks, sargassum, Gulf Stream, incubate, carapace

For more information on Loggerhead Sea Turtles in North and South Carolina, go to

http://www.dnr.sc.gov/seaturtle/

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/turtles/loggerhead.htm

For children’s activities about Loggerhead Sea Turtles, go to

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/coloringbook/leatherback.html

http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/lesson111.shtml

Coastal Plain Gallery

This gallery features

  • Mounted American Bald Eagle
  • Mounted shorebirds
  • Diorama of waterfowl
  • Mounted backyard birds
  • Bird nests and eggs
  • Native American cultural artifacts
  • Hands-on deer bones, food, alphabet tracing

Vocabulary:

Beak, adaptation, talons, feathers, warm-blooded, species, habitat, markings, bill, predator, hatchlings, mud flats, migrate

For information on shorebirds go to:

http://www.audubon.org/

http://www.ncaudubon.org/

http://www.beidlerforest.com/index.html

Please send comments or feedback to [email protected].

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Museum of Coastal Carolina
Sept. 7 to December 31
Thursday-Saturday 10:00 am to 4:00 pm and Second Tuesday 5 to 7 p.m. for Sandbar Lectures.

Sundays 12:00 to 4:00 pm during Festival of Trees.

All-day admission: $10 adults, $9 seniors (62+), $8 children (3-12), free for age 2 & under.

Membership: Most events are free for Museum members.

Combo Tickets: admission to museum and one planetarium show: $15 Adults, $14 seniors, $13 children.

Military: with ID receive $2 discount off general admission.

Museums for All: SNAP participants receive $2 Admission for up to 6 people.

Questions? Call the Museum of Coastal Carolina at 910-579-1016.

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Ingram Planetarium
Sept. 7 to December 31
Thursday – Saturday
Dome Shows 11 am to 3 pm
Friday and Saturday
Laser shows at 6 and 7 pm

Per-show admission: $10 adults, $9 seniors (62+), $8 children (3-12), free for age 2 & under

Combo Tickets: admission to one planetarium show and one all-day admission ticket to the museum: $15 Adults, $14 seniors, $13 children.

Military: with ID receive $2 discount off general admission.

Museums for All: SNAP participants receive $2 Admission for up to 6 people.

If you wish, you may call 910-575-0033 on the day of your visit to reserve your ticket.

Questions? Call the Planetarium at 910-575-0033.

Plan to arrive at least 15 minutes early.
DUE TO SAFETY CONCERNS, ENTRY TO THE THEATER IS NOT ALLOWED ONCE DOORS CLOSE FOR A SHOW.

 

Museums for All

The Museums for All program offers those participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) discounted admission to the Museum of Coastal Carolina and Ingram Planetarium. Each member of the family up to six people can receive admission to either the Museum or Planetarium for $2.00 with the presentation of a SNAP Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card. The Museums for All program is available for general admission during the museum’s regular open hours and at all planetarium dome shows. The program applies to general admission; special events such as laser shows are not eligible.

Similar reduced and even free admission is available to eligible members of the public at venues across the country. More than 800 institutions participate in the initiative, including art museums, children’s museums, science centers, botanical gardens, zoos, history museums, and more. Museums for All is part of the Ocean Isle Museum Foundation’s broad commitment to welcome all audiences.

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