Each week, friends and families of all numbers enter the doors of the Florida Natural History Museum, yearning to learn about the life that came before them.
But when coolly colored walls likened to the sea greeted their eyes for the first time, museum visitors were about to be introduced to the life below them.
Saturday morning, the Florida Museum of Natural History opened its new permanent exhibit, Water Shapes Florida.
The exhibit is centered on Florida freshwater and its shape on human life over time. The exhibit, with interactive projector screens and physical replicas of underwater wildlife, aims to illustrate the evolution of the state's aquifers, rivers and most famous springs just north of the museum’s location in Gainesville.
Nikhil Srinivasan, the museum’s marketing specialist, said the Florida Museum of Natural History wanted to emphasize an aspect of the environment the museum was missing — freshwater.
“When people think of Florida, they often think of the beaches and the nice coast,” Srinivasan said. “But when you think about it, us in Gainesville, we are land-locked, and so most people here are probably interacting with freshwater a lot more. And so we kind of wanted to tell that story a little bit more.”
Water Shapes Florida’s new boat tour simulation drew in the largest crowd at the museum. The simulation consists of a glass-bottom theater with TV screens that mimic a boat ride through Florida springs.
Darcie MacMahon is the museum’s director of exhibits and public programs. Her passion for Earth’s water systems — combined with the creativity her role at the museum affords her — culminated in the idea of an unusual simulation experience in Water Shapes Florida.
Likening the experience to a “magic boat,” MacMahon said guests feel like they fly and dive into aquifers. The next thing they know, they are popping out of a crystal-colored spring.
“In sort of a friendly, theatrical way,” she said. “[People] learn about drinking water, where it comes from, where the springs come from and what we can do to protect them.”
MacMahon said the idea for Water Shapes Florida first arose in 2018 when the museum realized it needed to update one of its former exhibits, which featured a replica of a cave quite popular among visitors.
“When we started thinking about how would we refresh it, and would we change the story,” she said, “we decided that the story of water was really important in Florida.”
Above anything else, MacMahon aimed to address the role of freshwater in “a more direct way.” With 12,133 square miles, Florida has the largest area of water in the United States.
“”It’s such a critical part of our lives in Florida and has so many critical issues today,” she said.
The new exhibit continues to feature the cave replica but now uses it to show how caves hold groundwater.
Srinivasan said more than 1,300 people were in attendance to witness the opening celebration, which featured performances by local Gainesville groups, such as a performance by Danscompany of Gainesville dancers and Porch Swing jazz quartet.
“It’s not often we get song and dance performances here,” Srinivasan said. “It made the atmosphere here so lively and fun, because it is a celebration. We’re celebrating a brand new exhibit, and that kind of contributed to it.”
Kali Geiger, a member of Porch Swing, said the quartet was approached about the opening event a few months ago.
“Since then, we researched different water theme tunes, especially in the jazz and pop music repertoire,” Geiger said. “We went back and looked at the lyrics and thought about what water-themed tunes would fit.”
Water Shapes Florida is available in English and Spanish, making it the museum’s first permanent bilingual exhibit. MacMahon said she made this decision because the museum has been seeing an increase in Spanish-speaking visitors.
“We found that if we have bilingual exhibits, it really draws new audiences and also makes for intergenerational learning,” she said.
Water Shapes Florida has free admission and is located at 3215 Hull Road.
Contact Tanya Fedak at tfedak@alligator.org. Follow her on X @ttanyafedak.
