Be a Horticulture Exhibit Volunteer

Do you like plants, dirt, and science education? Do you think topics like pollination biology and plant domestication are cool? If so, come join our team of Horticulture Exhibit Volunteers!

Volunteers get hands-on horticulture experience working with exhibit plants, and help Pacific Science Center guests learn about the science behind our living exhibits. Horticulture Exhibit Volunteers work in our Tropical Butterfly House, the native plant Pollinator Garden, and in our new garden exhibit about plant domestication, “Civilized Seeds: A History of People and Plants.”

Join the talented crew that beautifies and interprets PSC’s plant exhibits. Become a Horticulture Exhibit Volunteer!

Please click on the link below for more information.

http://pacscivolunteers.blogspot.com/2016/02/horticulture-exhibit-volunteer.html


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Volunteer Postcard

With very mixed feelings our team recently said “bon voyage” to one of our Volunteer Animal Caretakers, Bridget. After ten months on the team, she left Seattle for a yearlong globetrotting adventure. Her journey started in the Middle East and Africa and ends in South East Asia. We couldn’t allow ourselves to be too sad because we were all so excited and supportive of her trip, and understandably thrilled to live through her vicariously.




So far she has been to Dubai, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Kenya. We have seen her pictures of lions, elephants, hippos, giraffes, and zebras etc., but we are probably most excited about her wild encounters with animals from our collection!



A big part of the reason that Bridget started volunteering with us was because of her love for naked mole rats. A significant part of her morning tasks was dedicated to cleaning, preparing food, and interpreting our naked mole-rat colony for guests. There are about 20 species of mole rat native to Africa, our beloved naked mole rats being one of them. While touring Great Zimbabwe, Bridget was lucky enough to encounter evidence of a colony:

As Bridget put it in a message sent to one of our Animal Caretakers: “At Great Zimbabwe, guide told me that these were Mole Rat Tunnels! I squealed with delight and he looked at me like I was insane.”



Bridget has also seen one of our most beloved arthropods that we have in the Insect Village: The Giant African Millipede. Coming across this giant diplopod in the wild would probably startle a lot of people, but Bridget was just excited and eager to share what she knew about them.




Along with her picture came this message “Look what I spotted in the wild! I got very excited and told everyone about my experience with Giant African Millipedes.” 
A few weeks later, Bridget found another Giant African Millipede in Kenya, “This one was real big! Crawling around on our porch, so cool!”


Thanks, Bridget, for sharing your pictures from the first half of your trip! We are excited to see if you encounter any more animals from our collection when you head to South East Asia. Hopefully when you are back you can volunteer with us again!



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Little Buddy

Animal Care Volunteer Jess recently submitted this story for our blog.

Every Thursday morning I go through the same morning tasks as an Animal Care volunteer, checking on each of our animals, noting anything that needs that attention of the staff. Lately, my favorite area has been the Insect Village. I look at each exhibit, refilling water dishes as necessary, and affectionately calling everyone “little buddy”.

This morning, though, I had a sad surprise. In the bottom of the giant praying mantis exhibit was a dead mantis. I went to the Lead Animal Caretaker, Lauren, and told her what I had found. She asked if I wanted to take it out, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. Despite my limited interaction with them, I always feel sad at the passing of any of our insects.

Imagine my surprise when I heard an excited Lauren calling my name. “Look!” she said. I looked more closely. What I had mistaken for a dead mantis was in fact an exoskeleton that had been molted. We had our very first adult praying mantis! He is quite beautiful. If you visit PSC, you will definitely want to come see him. I don’t think “little buddy” will work anymore so I’ll be calling him just “buddy” from now on!

Volunteers like Jess have memorable experiences every day at Pacific Science Center. If you love science and would love to share your enthusiasm with like-minded people, consider volunteering in our Science Interpretation Program. Training begins in September.


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Spring Cleaning!

If you’ve spent any time outside in Seattle recently, you’ll notice that summer is on its way. Summer at Pacific Science Center means longer open hours, lots of visitors, and no more closed-to-the-public Tuesdays. Before we resume our seven day a week opening schedule (May 27), the Life Sciences department has many spring-cleaning chores to perform.

Recently, volunteers from the Liberty Mutual Insurance, Serve with Liberty program joined Life Sciences staff and volunteers to help with our spring-cleaning. This enthusiastic team helped weed our courtyard gardens, scrub algae off the tide pool, scour the pond and power wash the floor of our Tropical Butterfly House.

With our big cleaning projects out of the way, we can now look forward to spending more time with our guests this summer and be happy knowing that plant and animal exhibits will be looking good in the coming months!

Thank you Liberty Mutual Insurance volunteers!

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