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| - This was the letter that I wrote to Sea Life Aquarium about our recent experience:
I tried to leave a comment on the "sea life contact us" page, but kept getting a "page not found" error. I called the 877 number and was told that you were the correct person to contact.
I am writing about a recent field trip that my children went on with ___________________________school. We visited the Tempe Sea Life Aquarium on Sept 25, 2013. I was lucky enough to be a chaperone for the day so I was able to experience your aquarium.
Initially I was a bit skeptical about visiting an aquarium in the desert! I've been to many aquariums so I wasn't expecting a lot from your facility. Boy, did you prove me wrong! Your facility has beautiful and engaging exhibits with a large range of aquatic life. Many children in the group had never been to an aquarium before so they had a wonderful first time experience.
Despite the beautiful tanks, we were disappointed in the educational presentation for which we payed extra money. We were brought into a small, hot room where the kids played a game answering random questions about an oil spill and recycling. Our students asked many questions at first and the answer that they received back most often was, "I'm not sure. I just have the questions and answers written on the paper." Our Honors Team students even laughed at the fact that the presenter was unable to spell "piranha." The girl who did the presentation, I believe her name was Kristen, seems to need more training and education about the topics that she presented. The first problem arose when she assumed that the kids were much younger than they actually were - not cool for 13 year old kids to be asked if they are 9.......not that big of a deal, but it set the presentation off on a negative note. She was unable to interact with the kids in an engaging interactive manner which left the kids bored and uninterested. The questions were random and there was no discussion about what the significance was regarding the questions and answers. It was basically a bunch of random facts thrown at us that involved no thinking or discovery. I feel that the presentation was not correctly geared towards our student's age group and academic level. After the game, which lasted way too long (one hour), there was no discussion about the impact of oil spills or reasons why children should recycle or what they could do to make small changes to improve the health of our ecosystem. Sadly, there was little to no educational value to the presentation. I would have rather had my children watch a documentary on a screen than listen to someone present a topic in which they obviously had no training or understanding. I feel that our time would have been better spent in the tank area.
Again, your facility is really nice and we enjoyed our time in the exhibit area. However, your education department needs to step it up.
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