The Bell House

Incorporated on February 25, 1892, Colonial Beach, Virginia is the “Playground on the Potomac.” Its beautiful beaches and lavish waterfront property including its most famous structure The Alexander Graham Bell house, presently the Bell House Bed and Breakfast located on Irving Street, is a must see family destination.

Only a short drive from the well traveled Route 3 “Historic Corridor” that hosts attractions including Stratford Hall, George Washington’s Birthplace, Westmoreland State Park, Historic Downtown Fredericksburg, and The Museum at Colonial Beach.

The Colonial Beach Historical Society rescued an historical house from destruction and created the Museum at Colonial Beach to tell the town’s rich history through artifacts, photos and other exhibits. The Museum is open to visitors from early April until the middle of December. The regular hours of operation are Saturdays and Sundays 1-4 pm and the second Friday of the month from 6-8 pm though private tours are available through appointment. Admission is free, but your generous donations help keep the doors open.

The museum has much to offer including the Watermen’s Room, a permanent exhibit, dedicated by the founding members of the Historical Society to honor the generations of fishermen and oysterman who made their living on the waters around Colonial Beach. The surrounding waters are important to the area, so important in fact that the museums supporters reached out to Touch Tanks for Kids for help in purchasing a touch tank to demonstrate to local children and visitors alike how important the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and its sea creatures are to the continued prosperity of the “Playground on the Potomac”

Here is the email from The Museum at Colonial Beach curator, Shane Buzby, to Touch Tanks for Kids executive director, Mike Martin, explaining how the museum will secure the additional funding for their touch tank project and his subsequent post on the Touch Tanks for Kids Discussion Forum explaining how the touch tank will benefit the museum’s community.

Hello, my name is Shane Buzby. I am writing on behalf of The Museum at Colonial Beach Va. We are a small Beach town, located on the Potomac River in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Museum is devoted to the education of all people from children to adults. We firmly believe that a touch tank would be instrumental in the education and learning for our children especially. It would give the schoolchildren a chance to learn about nature and how to conserve our resources. We see this as a valuable asset to the Museum, which would provide field trips and special events around the touch tank. Being a small non-profit organization, we would rely on our memberships and donations to secure extra funding for any added costs. Thank you for your time. -Shane Buzby (curator)

Touch Tank

Shane Buzby’s wonderful explanation of how a touch tank will enhance The Museum at Colonial Beach:

In today’s world, where children are more involved with television and video games, The Museum at Colonial Beach wants to reach out to the children and educate them with the utilization of a touch tank. The Museum at Colonial Beach Va, is dedicated to the education of our children, and what better way to promote education, but through a touch tank. Imagine the look in a child’s eyes as he/she touches a specimen form the touch tank, that they have only seen in a book or magazine. Being a small community, the museum is located within walking distance from the elementary school. This will enable the children to take multiple field trips to learn about our environment, the species that live in our waters, and to promote the conservation of the earth. I see a touch tank as the biggest educational tool available. Our Town is located on the Potomac River and thrives with numerous species of shellfish, crustaceans, and wildlife. The Museum wants to promote the preservation of these and the education of what these species are and how they feel and live. As our children seem less involved with nature, the museum wants to let them know what our world has to offer and through a touch tank, I feel that we can communicate with our children. After all, the children of today are the future of tomorrow. Thank You – Shane Buzby (curator)

The Museum at Colonial Beach is doing a membership drive!!! Please go to their website http://www.museumatcolonialbeach.com , and become a member of the Museum Today. Your membership is what keeps the museum doors open and will help improve the decorum with an educational touch tank!

Join the discussion at the Touch Tanks for Kids Discussion Forum and let them know how they can improve the Touch Tanks for Kids Program.

Find them both on Facebook:

The Museum at Colonial Beach

Touch Tanks for Kids

While visiting the Children’s Discovery Museum located on 171 Capitol Street in Augusta, Maine,  Touch Tank learned several things about Touch Tanks for Kids executive director, Mike Martin. Mike loves his family, discovered his passion for the ocean while serving in the Navy, and graduated from the University of Maine at Augusta in 2004.

While discussing how aquariums create awareness about pollution and ocean acidification, Mike explained how more aquariums in homes, classrooms and business motivate people to reduce their contribution to the problems that our waterways face. Between 1751 and 1994 ocean pH has decreased from approximately 8.179 to 8.104, the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth’s oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, is a major threat to human existence.

Mike’s community service serves as a platform to bring more awareness to the issues that threaten the waters of the world, so when the members of the University of Maine at Augusta’s Alumni Association needed contributions for the creative section of their next news letter, Mike offered to share his first aquarium experience as a way to bring additional awareness to the cause.

Dan the Turtle

Below are some exerts, the story in its entirety can be read in the next edition of the UMAA newsletter found on the University’s web site by clicking right HERE and checking back often.

My First Aquarium

When I was young, I had no interest in attempting to keep fish alive in an aquarium. I had better things do-like spying on my teenage sisters and their boyfriends. They hated my intrusions so much that they would bribe me with cash and adventure often sending me down the road to Wortman’s Store to buy them cigarettes………..

As I remember, we had about an hour to make the two mile round trip up the Leisure Life (a local restaurant that we called “Loose Your Wife”) Road, through the woods and back home……………….

Jon spotted Dan the Turtle first and yelled at Daigle, “Hey Dan did you write your name on that rock?”

I shouted, “That’s no rock, it’s moving, it’s a turtle!”……………

When we arrived at my house, our fathers were standing on MacAfee Street, both of them mad has hell, red faced and ready for discipline. We knew instantly that we were in a dire situation

The Children’s Discovery Museum moved from downtown Augusta, Maine to 171 Capitol ST. next to Harvest Time Natural Foods in the Shaw’s Plaza.

The new location will provide better visibility, more parking space and one-floor accessibility; and it is close to other businesses in the plaza. Displays include a grocery store, a restaurant, a Maine campground, a tree house/nature center, and a theater. The museum also has an engineering/construction/transportation exhibit and a birthday party room.

Motivation to Develop Knowledge

Melissa Merfeld, president of the museum’s board, said a decline in donations and grants forced the museum to move. Merfeld said that the museum’s membership continues to grow, but the museum struggled to pay the rent. Rent is now a third what it would have cost the museum to stay in downtown Augusta.

Valencia Schubert, the Museum’s executive director recently released this announcement regarding the Children’s Discovery Museum Grand Opening:

After a month of very hard work, by so many wonderful people,
CDM is ready to re-open it’s doors. Our new location at 171 Capitol Street is ready to hear the laughter of children!

Members Only Day

Friday, November 6th from 10-5 we will host a members only day.
Please bring your valid membership card and
we will update it with an extension for your patience during our move.

Grand Re-Opening

Saturday, November 7th from 10-5 we will be
welcoming everyone to our new home.
Please join us for this very exciting day.

Indispensable Resource for Families

Be sure to check out the Museum’s November calendar for our fun special events.

For more information about the Children’s Discovery Museum email: info@childrensdiscoverymuseum.org

Teachers looking for an outstanding experience when they take their students to New York City won’t want to miss the Liberty Science Center, located in nearby Jersey City, New Jersey.

With a rich assortment of educational experiences inside, students will be talking about their trip for years to come.

Exceptional Science Learning

From the minute they step inside the state-of-the-art laboratories, students experience  a hands-on learning experience led by knowledgeable science educators. Inquiry-based investigations facilitate comprehension of sometimes complex subject matter with subjects including native wildlife, chemistry, watersheds to the properties of light, and many other.

In the middle of one of the most densely populated areas in the world lies an ecological haven known as Liberty State Park. Teachers and students can go out in the field, where they’ll learn about the plants, animals, habitats and geology of the Hudson River Estuary, as well as the impact of humans on the river, all with a choice of land-based or on-the river experiences.

magic

In “Live From . . .” the Liberty Science Center brings teachers and students the thrill of real-time interactive videoconferencing with a series of hospital surgical suites, featuring cardiac, neurosurgery, kidney transplant and robotic surgery experiences. Students get to witness firsthand the sights and sounds of surgery and benefit from having a surgical team of doctors, nurses, technicians and physician assistants answer their questions, even while they are doing their jobs.
Students watch the surgery on a large screen in the Liberty Science Center’s interactive theater, with staff educators facilitating the experience of learning about surgical procedures, the equipment and devices used, education paths leading to careers in medical professions and healthy lifestyle choices.

In Partners in Science, students at the Liberty Science Center go beyond textbooks and school-based labs by immersing themselves in authentic scientific research conducted by professional scientists. The intensive, eight-week summer experience for high school juniors and seniors pairs students with mentor scientists and challenges them to participate in on-going research and independent projects. Through Partners in Science, students are exposed to current questions driving scientific discovery in real laboratory settings. They also develop a network of advisors and lifelong connections that help them identify and focus their career goals.

One Mission

People live in them, work in them, and stare at them. They’re skyscrapers and they’re an integral part of our lives and community. As works of art and expressions of human aspiration, they inspire, drawing us to understanding, making skyscrapers a perfect teaching point.
The Liberty Science Center’s 12,800-square-foot Skyscraper! Achievement and Impact exhibit is the most comprehensive single exhibition ever presented on the topic. With multimedia, full-body kinetic experiences and experiment-based lab stations, visitors will learn about the planning, design, engineering and construction plus explore the environments that are created and changed when massive buildings go up.

Several additional displays offer students great opportunities to explore various aspects of science, all in a spirit of learning by touching.

Among the exhibits to look forward to:

Encourages Inquiry and Critical Thinking

Infection Connection: Where students explore interactions between microbes and humans, learn about emerging diseases, and see how science develops tools and technologies to prevent and treat them. They can even conduct microbiology and epidemiology experiments in a laboratory environment.

Communication: How people communicate, not only with advanced multimedia and personal communication devices, but with our bodies, language and symbolism.

Our Hudson Home: A hands-on learning experience that highlights the balance required for commerce, recreation and environmental preservation to co-exist in everyday life.

Filled Live Animals,

Eat and Be Eaten: Filled with scores of live animals, visitors understand and explore the complex interaction that has been elegantly called the “circle of life.”

Breakthroughs: A fitting exhibition for our fast-changing world; an interactive, multimedia experience featuring exhibits and programs that address current issues and events in science and technology.
Energy Quest: Students take a journey through the five major sources of Earth’s energy, learning about the many methods humans have used to explore and harness these energy sources.

Famous attractions in New Jersey that offer discovery, education, and loads of fun:

Crossroads of the American Revolution,

New Jersey has many famous attractions cultural that are visited by tourist. This article provides information on some famous cultural places that are prefect for parents and teachers searching for ways to improve the quality of their children’s education.

Cowtown Rodeo

Old West Rodeo

780 Route 40, Pilesgrove, NJ
856-769-3200
May-September, 7:30 PM, Saturday nights
Enjoy quality Western Rodeo entertainment by touring professional cowboys. Includes; Bareback Bronc Riding, Calf Roping, Steer Wrestling, Girls Barrel Racing, Brahma Bull Riding.

Franklin Mineral Museum

Mineral Majic

2 Evans Street, Franklin, Sussex County, NJ
973-827-3481
The Franklin mine is a zinc mine known for its unique display of glowing rocks and rare species. With thousands of mineral specimens on display and a huge fluorescent presentation of brilliant and glowing colorful minerals, the museum features demonstrations of the mining methods used during its operation. Although the primary focus is mineral science, geology, and local mining history, cultural attractions include archeology and anthropology lessons complete with field collection and mineral identification. The museum welcomes parents, teachers and school tours and creates specific curriculum to fit your cultural interest.

Northlandz

Dedication To Art and Creativity

495 Highway 202 South, Flemington, NJ
(908) 782-4022
Home of the Great American Railway, Doll Museum & Art Gallery;
Northlandz has over a hundred miniature trains and eight miles of track running past mountains and bridges. See the ninety four room dollhouse with many features found in real life mansions, ride the Raritan River steam Railway replica as it travels through nature filled scenery, and visit the Doll Museum with over two hundred dolls from different countries.

The Pequest Trout Hatchery and Natural Resource Education Center

State-Of-The-Art Education Center

605 Pequest Rd. Oxford, NJ
908-637-4125

The Pequest Trout Hatchery and Natural Resource Education Center offers videos about the trout hatching process from conception to stocking, a self-instructional tour that shows the trout rearing and an exhibit hall with live fish. The hiking trails and picnic areas are great for parents, teachers, children and school tours.

Rankokus Indian Reservation

Professional Staff Guided Tours

Rancocas, NJ
(609) 261-4747
Situated on 350 acres in the town of Westampton, NJ, is the Indian nation’s administrative and educational, cultural, social programs center that was established to help the people and school children understand the Rankokus Indians’ cultural events and cultural history through a tour of the reservation, the museum, art gallery, cultural attractions and nature trails. Learn about Indian history from the native Indians and the true story of the Pocahontas, popular with parents, teachers and school children who are looking for a field trip to enhance their knowledge of cultural history

The famous attractions of New Jersey are an experience cultural that children and students will remember forever as the experience improves their knowledge of America and the world.