NEW BEDFORD, MA (19 June 2009)— Picture a place where Mom can relax while the kids enjoy supervised arts and crafts, water fun, puzzles, books, and dramatic play.

 

Just outside the door is an exciting world of marine life­, including a living coral reef, anemone fishes, jellyfish, seahorses and local New England fishes and scallops.

 

That’s what the innovative new children’s activity center in New Bedford’s Ocean Explorium will offer families when it opens on July 4.

 

“It will be a place of discovery, a place of learning, and a place for fun,” says Explorium education coordinator, Abbey Spargo.

 

“Our mission is about education, and we want to offer children an inquiry-based learning opportunity – a place where they can engage in entertaining hands-on activities, which will encourage them to use their power of observation and to begin questioning things from an early age.”

 

The Ocean Explorium, which has been open since January last year, has already proven to be a popular destination for children. This month it was honored with a South Coast Gold Award for “best kid’s activity” by Cape Cod Life magazine.

 

“We were thrilled to be recognized as a great place for children, but now we’re going to have so much more to offer them,” said Ms. Spargo.

 

The new children’s activity center will be located inside the Ocean Explorium – a center for learning about ocean science, which is located at 174 Union Street, in downtown New Bedford.

 

It will be housed in a colorful, ocean-themed room of its own, just off the Explorium’s main exhibition area, which will feature several living aquarium exhibits, as well as the focal exhibit, the global display system, Science on a Sphere®.

 

“Children will be able to come and go freely between the activity center, the aquarium exhibits and the Sphere,” explained Ms. Spargo.

 

“We think they’ll be inspired by what they see inside the tanks and on the Sphere when they come to do their activities, their puppet plays, or their simple science experiments in the water table.”

 

Ms. Spargo says the center will provide fun activities for infants and children up to the age of about 8. It will be a comfortable place for children and adults – offering mothers the opportunity to discreetly breastfeed, should they need to.

 

There will be regular story hours in the morning and afternoon, and it will be open daily between 10am and 4pm from July 4.  The cost of admission to the Ocean Explorium will include the activity center -- $6 for adults and $4 for kids.

 

For more information, contact Ellen Carpenter (508 758 8494) or go to www.oceanexplorium.org