The Museum was flooded last weekend with visitors who came to dive into our 2^nd annual Miami Underwater Festival. Friday night kicked off the event with showings of award-winning French and English underwater films from the 39^th Festival Mondial de L’image Sous-Marine, including The Surprise Salmon, narrated by Jeremy Irons. And the film festival continued on Saturday with an evening of marine conservation films sponsored by COSEE Florida and Beneath the Waves Film Festival. Throughout the weekend, lots of special guests came to shed light on fascinating underwater worlds, and the amazing creatures that call water home:

Dr. Ted Caplow of Fish Navy Films showed his film Fish Meat: Choose Your Farm Wisely, and talked about how to support sustainable fish farming (for example, eat the “bottom feeder” species)… Dr. Mike Heithaus of Florida International University talked about all the incredible research they are doing in Shark Bay, one of the world’s most unique ecosystems… Julian Sprung of Two Little Fishies discussed new trends and species in ornamental marine aquaculture (everyone loved seeing all the new blends in hybrid fish coloration)… Dr. Lisa Krimsky of NOAA’s National Sea Grant Office talked about lionfish, which are an invasive species in south Florida (this means they are not native to the region), and the problems they are causing for native species. This was followed by a yummy lionfish taco tasting prepared by Chef Alan McLennan… Expert divers Nick Morrell and Jason Bacon of the Miami-Dade Reef Guard Association shared tips on the best places to dive and the fantastic things you can see there… and Chris Olstad from the Marine Resources Development Foundation connected with the Museum via videoconference from Key Largo, and let visitors here at the Museum remotely operate an underwater vehicle in the ocean!

For those visitors who wanted to really get their hands wet, there were workshops to learn how to set up and maintain an aquarium (and a raffle to win your own new aquarium), activities to learn how things float, interactive story time with Oscar from the Miami-Dade Public Library, displays of fluorescent coral, viewings of WPBT2’s Changing Seas, and an exhibition of underwater photography by the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. If you really wanted to get up close, you could even dissect a squid (if you could stomach it). And of course, when you are showing award-winning French films, the weekend would not be complete without a delicious French breakfast by PAUL, sponsored by the General Consulate of France in Miami and partners.

We are just starting to dry off after our weekend underwater, but we are already looking forward to diving in again next year!

What you’ll see in our Sea Lab, or diving off south Florida

Visitors dissect squid in the Museum’s Sea Lab exhibition

Starfish can grow a whole new body from just a single limb!

Elizabeth and her family meet a seahorse for the first time

Zach meets a diver while remotely operating an underwater vehicle

Algae living in these coral fluoresce under ultraviolet light

Museum staff always work really hard to find ways to inspire young people, and our visitors, in science and the world around them. But we love being inspired by someone teaching us something new too. Recently, Erica Moulton of the MATE (Marine Advanced Technology Education) Center led Museum staff in a workshop to build and design remotely-operated (ROV) vehicles. ROVs can explore underwater environments where it is difficult or impossible for humans to go themselves. They can monitor coral reef systems, explore shipwrecks, or even go underneath ice sheets in Antarctica. They can observe, but also take photos, videos, and even collect specimens. And it takes a lot of people with many different skills to get ROVs from design to operation to observation to results – like electricians, engineers, and all different kinds of scientists, depending on what you want to learn from what the ROV observed or collected. But as we at the Museum always like to remind people, you can do science anywhere, at any time, with simple materials you can find in your kitchen drawers or at the local hardware store. Ms. Moulton, through a National Science Foundation ITEST grant, provided us with several ROV kits and all the materials necessary to build ROVs with our Museum audiences. She uses these same kits to work with schools and teachers on engaging students in ROVs, which then may be entered into regional and national ROV student competitions. At the workshop, we worked in teams to glue little propellers to motors, solder wires to electrical switches, build the frame of the ROV using pieces of PVC piping, and add foam tubing to help with floatation. Now our ROVs are ready to explore, and we are so excited to find all the ways to pass on our inspiration to our Museum audiences, and let others try their hand at ROV building and operating!

Our ROV in a Bag kit

Wiring and soldering the switches on the box to operate the ROV

Adding some foam to our almost-finished ROV frame