Get in Touch with Marine Life

July 13, 2010 -- Museum visitors will have several opportunities to learn about the marine life of Penobscot Bay and touch a number of sea creatures this summer.

Oceanographer Mike Dunn will present a program on marine life at 1:00 p.m. on three Sundays: July 18, August 8, and August 29. Visitors will be invited to ask questions and hold some of the animals in the museum's "touch tank" marine aquarium.

In addition, the tank will be opened every Thursday from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. A staff person will talk about the animals in the tank and allow visitors to hold and touch some of them.

The programs are free with museum admission.

The touch tank is home to crabs, starfish, mollusks, a lobster, and other marine animals native to Penobscot Bay. It spends the winter at various elementary schools, providing learning opportunities to area students, and from May through October it is a feature of the museum's children's learning area known as the Marine Science Lab.