Delaware Freshwater Wetlands Art and Essay Contests

We’re joining with the Delaware Department of Education along with State Senator Stephanie Hansen, State Representative Sophie Phillips, and community partners to promote the Delaware Freshwater Wetlands art and essay contests for Delaware school children.

The artwork will be displayed first at the Department of Education from May 8-June 8. Selected artwork and essays will go on exhibit at the museum this summer.

Visit the Delaware Nature Society’s website to learn more about Freshwater Wetlands and to enter the contests.

Learn more

Art Contest: Open to Students Grades K-12

Students will create a 2D work of art to help celebrate our increased awareness of the importance of our Freshwater Wetlands in Delaware. Artwork due to District Offices by May 1.

FWW-Art-Contest-Flyer-2023 Download

Essay Contest: Grades 3-12

Elementary (3^rd-5^th grade): Write an essay that supports three ways you and your family could conserve and protect freshwater wetlands and why. Include at least three references that you used as sources for your information.

Middle School (6^th-8^th grade): Write an essay that supports why freshwater wetlands are important to Delaware. Use multiple resources to develop your essay that are listed in a bibliography. This essay should be at least 500 words with bibliography.

High School (9 through 12^th grade): How do human activities affect freshwater wetlands? Provide specific examples. Provide several solutions that could improve or restore Delaware’s freshwater wetlands. This essay should be at least 1,000 words and must include a bibliography.

All essays must be submitted online by May 1, 2023, to Tonyea.mead@doe.k12.de.us.

Prizes will be given to first, second and third place in elementary, middle, and high school and each county (Kent, Sussex, and NCC). Download the form below to learn more.

Freshwater-Wetlands-Essay-Contest-for-students-2 Download

World of Discovery series returns

The World of Discovery series is back at the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science.

This spring, the museum will welcome scientists from the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment and Delaware Sea Grant to give an overview of their scientific area of interest.

Wednesdays, March 8, April 12 and May 10 | 7 p.m.

Building the Future: Climate Change Adaptation Visions

Wednesday, April 12 | 7 p.m.

Dr. A.R. Siders is director of the Gerard J Mangone Climate Change Science and Policy Hub at the University of Delaware, and faculty in the Biden School of Public Policy, Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences, and the Disaster Research Center. Her research focuses on climate change adaptation decision-making: how communities and governments make decisions about where, when, and how to adapt to climate change. She has recently worked on a Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative, to review adaptation efforts around the world, and as a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report and the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

Adaptation to climate change has, to date, generally sought to maintain the world as it is through small, incremental changes to business-as-usual. But these small changes are likely not enough to deal with future climate change. Instead, future adaptation could involve radical shifts in society and socio-ecological systems, but what are the pros and cons of such transformations? What does fair, equitable, or just adaptation involve and is it possible? Dr. Siders will describe emerging dilemmas in the debate about adaptation justice and suggest pathways to envision a broader range of futures we can choose.

Building the Future: Ocean Literacy

Wednesday, May 10 | 7 p.m.

David Christopher, marine education specialist with Delaware Sea Grant, will give a talk on Wednesday, May 10, giving a broad overview of ocean literacy. Ocean literacy is an understanding of the ocean’s influence on you and your influence on the ocean. The Ocean covers over 70% of our planet. It provides food for much of the world’s population, helps regulate the world’s climate, and provides most of the oxygen we breathe. However, the ocean is facing numerous challenges from pollution, marine debris, climate change, and more. Understanding the Ocean and its systems is important to addressing the challenges facing the ocean today and making informed choices about the Ocean in the future. In this session, participants will be introduced to the Ocean Literacy Principles and the Fundamental Concepts and learn how Ocean Literacy is being used to expand the public’s understanding of the Ocean.

Previous events:

Greenland’s Glacier-Driven Ocean Circulation

Wednesday, March 8 | 7 p.m.

Andreas Muenchow, professor in the University of Delaware School of Marine Science and Policy, will talk about his work researching the physics, climate, and earth history of Greenland where tidewater glaciers melt and retreat rapidly as they interact with a dynamic and warming ocean. Muenchow spent more than 365 days sailing the oceans off North-West Greenland over the last 25 years, most recently in 2021 with the Danish Navy and collaborators from Denmark. During his time aboard the Danish research vessel, Muenchow used data from NASA’s Ocean Melts Greenland initiative that dropped ocean probes from an airplane into the ice waters off coastal Greenland to measure ocean temperature and salinity. Muenchow will talk about how Greenland’s coastal glaciers melt, shrink, and add to the globally rising sea level, drive local ocean currents that move icebergs around, and how the glaciers’ melt is cold fresh water while the adjacent ocean is both salty and warm.

Muenchow is a sea-going physical oceanographer whose puzzles range from the physics of river discharges in Argentina, Siberia, and Delaware to ice-ocean interactions and glaciers off northern Greenland and Canada. He also dabbles in statistics, ocean color remote sensing, computer modeling, and writing.

Community Read

This year we join local libraries and community partners for the tenth year of the Longwood Gardens’ Community Read — a program designed to encourage reading for pleasure and start a conversation. In 2023, the Community Read program takes a look at how food is a connector of people — especially for special moments — and how food connects to the world of plants and gardening.

The Delaware Museum of Nature and Science is delighted to be part of Community Read with a special program tailored for our young friends. In the children’s book, Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make you a Pie, by Robbin Gourley, the characters focus on farm-to-table all year round.

Special program for Spring 2023

Longwood Gardens Community Read: Mobile Museum Outreach Program

This program is available beginning March 1, 2023, but you can register now.

Perfect for schools, libraries, daycares, afterschool groups, community centers, and more!

Fee: $150 per program | Maximum Participants: 40 | Length: 45-60 minutes

Program Title	Ages	Description
Bring me some apples and I’ll make you a pie: a story about Edna Lewis	4-7	In the children’s book, Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Make you a Pie: A story about Edna Lewis, by Robbin Gourley, the characters focus on farm-to-table all year round. As part of the Longwood Gardens Community Read Program, the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science comes to you to explore how the seasons are unique and their effect on the growth of local crops. Learn why we don’t only get flowers after May showers, but all year long!

Learn about all of our Mobile Museum programs

Ready to register?

Mobile Museum Outreach program registration form

This is What a Scientist Looks Like

Outdoor Banner exhibit from the IF/THEN® Collection

This Is What A Scientist Looks Like, a new outdoor banner exhibit featuring 16 women in STEM, is now on display. The banners highlight several IF/THEN® Ambassadors along with local scientists and engineers, including our own Director of Collections and Curator of Mollusks Liz Shea, Ph.D., Kadine Mohomed of W. L. Gore & Associates, Jen Sheran of DuPont, marine scientist Jessica Myers, and Jacqueline Means, Founder of the Wilmington Urban STEM Initiative. The exhibit is funded through a grant awarded by the Association of Science and Technology Centers with support from Lyda Hill Philanthropies and the IF/THEN Initiative and sponsored locally by Bank of America.

Visit the IF/THEN® Collection

Dana Bolles

Spaceflight Engineer

Wears many hats at a space agency, from engineering to communicating about the search for life beyond Earth.

Video

Dr. Jaye Gardiner

Illustrator and Cancer Biologist

Studies the biology behind cancer and uses comics/trading cards to show that science is for everyone.

Sydney Hamilton

Aerospace Engineer & Engineering Manager

Leads a team of structural analysts who support multiple aerospace programs for space crafts and commercial aircraft.

Video

Dr. Ronda Hamm

Entomologist and Educator

Develops and implements strategies and relationships that promote STEM for future generations while showing people that insects are not scary.

Video

Dr. Lataisia C. Jones

Neuroscientist, Advocate and STEM Educator

Advocates for STEM diversity while spreading the joy of studying the brain.

Video

Dr. M. Nia Madison

Biomedical Scientist, Director of HIV Research, Professor, CEO and Author

Engages youth in STEAM community outreach programming through her nonprofit and instructs undergraduate students in microbiology and sustainability practices.

Video

Jacqueline Means

The STEM Queen

Uses her passion for and love of STEM to teach young girls fun, hands-on experiments and empower them to go into the field.

Dr. Kadine Mohomed

Core Technology Scientist

Applies her expertise in materials characterization to understand and promote innovation that enhances performance in products of high societal value.

Dr. Burcin Mutlu-Pakdil

Astrophysicist

Uses the world’s largest telescopes to understand the nature of dark matter and galaxy formation by studying the smallest galaxies.

Jess Myers, M.S.

Marine Scientist

Advocates for healthy oceans and marine life through art, public outreach, and her research on plastic pollution.

Dr. Elizabeth Shea

Director of Collections & Curator of Mollusks

Expands, sustains and uses natural history collections to understand cephalopod biodiversity.

Jen Sheran

Technical Training Program Manager

Creates and implements solutions to keep a global community of engineers in the semiconductor industry on the leading edge of technology.

Dr. Helen Tran

Molecular Architect and Polymer Chemist

Works to make future plastics and electronic products fully degradable.

Video

Dr. Danielle Twum

Cancer Immunologist and Translational Scientist Liaison

Conducts research in oncology and clinical immunology.

Video

Sarah A. Wilson

Mechanical Engineer

Intersects engineering with personal passions like skiing and gardening to make a difference in the health and safety of people and the planet.

Video

The du Pont Trophy

On exhibit in the Community Room: the du Pont Trophy original paintings by artist Lauren J. Sweeney

For more than 50 years, the museum has presented the du Pont Trophy Award to the “overall outstanding exhibit” entered at shell shows around the country. The award honors exceptional citizen scientists having a passion for shells, shell collecting, and the natural history of mollusks.

For the majority of its history, the du Pont Trophy was a simple engraved plaque. As part of the Museum’s 40th anniversary celebration in 2012, Director of Collections and Curator of Mollusks, Liz Shea, Ph.D. re-imagined the award to celebrate the variety in the museum’s vast collection of more than two million mollusks. She turned to long-time museum supporter and local artist, Lauren J. Sweeney, Ph.D. to make this vision a reality. The result is an original watercolor highlighting a different shell from the collection each year. A framed limited-edition, signed print of this commission is presented to the du Pont Trophy winners.

Lauren Sweeney’s paintings are informed by a lifetime of scientific observation. Originally a biologist who focused her talents on research, teaching, and scientific illustrations, Lauren is now a full-time artist. Her attention to detail brings the shape, color, texture, and pattern of her subjects into sharp focus. Lauren has exhibited her work in the greater Philadelphia area, including the Sketch Club, Gallery Twenty Two, and the Main Line Art Center.

For more information about the artist, visit www.inliquid.org.

The original paintings, currently on exhibit, are for sale for $600 to benefit the museum’s collections.

2023 duPont Trophy

Lambis lambis

The 2023 du Pont Trophy features the changing morphology of Lambis lambis. These dramatically different stages are symbolic of the major metamorphosis the museum experienced over the past few years. The Delaware Museum of Nature and Science reopened to the public in May 2022 with completely renovated exhibit spaces.

2022 duPont Trophy

Melongena corona

This painting depicts the marine snail Melongena corona as positioned on Curator of Mollusks Elizabeth Shea, Ph.D.’s kitchen table. The specimen (and setting) was chosen in recognition of the chaotic year ushered in by COVID.

SOLD

2020 du Pont Trophy

Spirula spirula

This painting features the internal shell of Spirula spirula, a deep sea cephalopod commonly referred to as ram’s horn squid. They are more often collected as shells than as live organisms. S. spirula was selected for the painting in recognition of research projects conducted by Widener University students.

2019 du Pont Trophy

Tellina radiata

This specimen of Tellina radiata, a bivalve mollusk commonly known as the Sunrise Tellin, is from the Alison Bradford collection, bequeathed to the museum by Alison Bradford, a longtime volunteer and member of the Board of Trustees. Bradford had been at the museum for over 30 years. She passed away in the summer of 2018 and transferred her collection of more than 1,000 shells to the museum, most collected in Gasparilla Island, Florida, where she owned a home.

2018 du Pont Trophy

Haliotis fulgens Philippi

The pearlescent marine sea snail abalone is the inspiration for the 2018 du Pont Trophy, featuring two specimens of the green abalone Haliotis fulgens Philippi, 1845 (DMNH 10958). These specimens have a beautiful nacreous layer and were selected by the museum’s first Mollusk Curator, R. Tucker Abbott, for illustration in the second edition of American Seashells. Published in 1974, the book is an essential resource for shell lovers and an important part of the museum’s history.

SOLD

2017 du Pont Trophy

Liguus crenatus variation

The 2017 du Pont trophy was based on shells owned by renowned Delaware illustrator Frank Schoonover, a gift from one of his most well-known clients, Irénée du Pont, owner of Granogue in Delaware and the fabled Xanadu mansion in Cuba, where the shells were collected. The shells were donated to the museum in December 2015 by Schoonover’s grandson John Schoonover.

2016 du Pont Trophy

Anodonta imbecilis from Florida

This year’s shell is a group of freshwater bivalves, commonly known as Paper Pondshells, collected in Lake Talquin, Florida in 1954. Freshwater bivalves are the focus of a recent National Science Foundation grant that will help the museum share its collections on the web.

2015 du Pont Trophy

Leporicypraea mappa variation

The museum’s mollusk collection contains over 250,000 boxes (or “lots”) of shells, making it one of the largest collections in North America. The Map Cowries in this painting highlight the depth of the museum’s holdings and the variation found within a single species.

2014 du Pont Trophy

Spondylus with data label

New collections come into the museum from many sources, often accompanied by old data labels. This specimen of Thorny Oyster is a beautiful and ornate U.S. species, complete with an interesting original data card.

2013 du Pont Trophy

Scaphella junonia on sand

Finding a Junonia on the beaches of the Florida Gulf Coast is cause for celebration. This composition highlights the popular marine snail resting on a background of sand collected from Boca Grande, Florida by long-time museum trustee and volunteer Alison Bradford.

SOLD

2012 du Pont Trophy

Festilyria duponti holotype

The subject of the first watercolor is Festilyria duponti, a shell named by Clifton Stokes Weaver in honor of Delaware Museum of Natural History founder, John E. du Pont. The background is a representation of a technical book on shells, co-authored by du Pont and Weaver.

Soundscapes

Sound is a distinct part of an ecosystem. The soundscapes in the galleries are designed to add another level to the immersive experience – they aren’t just background noise! Many of the species that can be viewed in the exhibits have a corresponding sound in the gallery’s soundscape.

In an ecosystem, sounds are part of an animal’s habitat, offering clues about the surrounding environment as well as being a tool to communicate with others. For example, when a hawk flies by and screams, mice and other rodents nearby will scurry away.

Some of the sounds used in the soundscapes came from the Macaulay Library at Cornell University, which features the largest archive of animal sounds in the world, with new material constantly uploaded. For example, the Pileated Woodpecker sound, heard as part of the Regional Journey’s Temperate Forest soundscape, was initially recorded locally and uploaded to the Macaulay Library by Dr. Matthew Halley, the museum’s Assistant Curator of Birds. These resources help power Cornell’s Merlin app, which can be used by bird watchers in the field to identify birds by photo and sound.

Listen to Dr. Matthew Halley, the museum’s Assistant Curator of Birds, talk about the soundscapes in the Regional Journey Gallery and what we can learn from the sounds we hear.

Transcript: Regional Journey Soundscapes

Hi. Welcome to the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science Regional Journey Gallery. My name is Matthew Halley, and we’re going to talk a little bit about the soundscapes that we hear today in our gallery.

We’ve got multiple habitats that are found in the mid-Atlantic region, a deciduous forest, temperate forest habitat. We have the Delaware Bay and salt marshes and the cypress swamp, and each of these habitats has a different soundscape.

We hear different animals and different crashing waves or the rustling of the leaves. There’s all sorts of sounds that are happening in nature.

When we go into these habitats and the animals are calling out for different reasons that scientists like to argue about, about whether they’re saying, here I am, here I am, or they’re staking a claim to a certain area and resources, or maybe they’re trying to attract a mate or attract some companions.

But regardless of the reason, these animals have to live in a in a soundscape and they listen to all these different sounds and they react to the sounds in their life, which helps them to survive. And when the hawk flies over and gives its scream, you can be sure that the mice that are under the hawk are scurrying into a safe corner.

So, birds make different kinds of sounds and scientists call them calls or songs. But we don’t have any clear-cut definitions for those words. Some sounds are shorter and less complex, such as when a Blue Jay goes “jay…jay.”
Other songs are a lot more complicated. When the robin is singing, it’s warbling song going on and on. It seems like it doesn’t repeat itself very often.

And then we have the mockingbird, which, you know, can go on for an hour, and we don’t hear anything from the same. You know, it’s constantly coming up with new syllables in its song so that we might think of that as kind of a gradient of complexity in bird vocalizations. And one of the things that some that scientists have figured out is that some vocalizations are learned and other vocalizations seem not to be learned.

So, the Phoebe that makes it’s Phoebe, Phoebe call that will develop normally in a baby Phoebe, without hearing an adult. If it grows up in an acoustic isolation chamber, that little Phoebe is still going to say “Phoebe, Phoebe.”

And it’s going to be indistinguishable from a baby Phoebe that grew up in a forest full of Phoebes.
But some other songs: here we’ve got the wood thrush singing in the soundscape, the wood thrush, that flute section in the middle of its song. When you raise a wood thrush in isolation that’s middle, part of the song gets kind of flat and unmusical. And so, it seems that the wood thrush needs to grow up around other wood thrushes to have a tutor to learn how to sing its song correctly.

And when I say correctly, I mean just to sing to produce a normal song that will achieve the functions of the song, whatever they may be, whether it’s territorial defense or attracting a mate. The more your song deviates from the normal, that might have an effect on whether you’re successful surviving or reproducing.

Regional Journey

Four rotating soundscapes in the Regional Journey feature many of the birds seen in the exhibits. Listen closely: there’s also a frog, squirrel, and a fishing reel!

Global Journey

In the Alison K. Bradford Global Journey Gallery, soundscapes including a variety of birds, mammals, and insects rotating through the land-based ecosystems.

New discount programs for guests using EBT cards

We’ve joined Museums for All, a signature access program of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), administered by the Association of Children’s Museums (ACM), to encourage people of all backgrounds to visit museums regularly and build lifelong museum-going habits. The program supports those receiving food assistance (SNAP) benefits visiting the museum for a minimal fee of $2 per person, up to four people, with the presentation of a SNAP Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card. Similar free and reduced admission is available to eligible members of the public at more than 850 museums across the country.

Museums for All helps expand access to museums and also raise public awareness about how museums in the U.S. are reaching their entire communities. More than 850 institutions participate in the initiative, including art museums, children’s museums, science centers, botanical gardens, zoos, history museums, and more. Participating museums are located nationwide, representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. Virgin Islands.

We’re also a member of Art Reach’s ACCESS Delaware. The programs are similar, but with some geographic differences: ACCESS is primarily for residents of Delaware and Pennsylvania, while Museums for All is for residents of all 50 states. Additionally, ACCESS offers the Art-Reach ACCESS Card. Individuals with disabilities can purchase an ACCESS Card directly from Art-Reach that allows them to receive $2 admission to over 70 museums, gardens, theaters and cultural sites throughout Greater Philadelphia.

To use Museums for All

Upon the display of an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, the individual and up to three additional people will get a discounted admission rate of $2 per person. The person whose name appears on the EBT card must be present to obtain the discount.

To use ACCESS

Bring a valid Art-Reach ACCESS Card, Pennsylvania ACCESS Card or Delaware EBT Card with a photo ID to the front desk. One (1) EBT or ACCESS Card admits the cardholder and up to three additional people at a rate of $2 per person. The person whose name appears on the EBT or ACCESS Card must be present to obtain the discount.

Learn about all of our discount programs

New species discovered using museum’s online collection data

Introducing Bourciera ovata

In the summer of 2020 — the first year of the pandemic — a team of European scientists began compiling a checklist of known terrestrial and fresh water mollusks of mainland Ecuador. The effort included occurrences recorded in past scientific reports or literature, museum datasets available online, and verified observations from citizen science projects like iNaturalist.

In reviewing our records, one of the scientists, Marijn Roosen of the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam, noticed some unusual records of a unique land snail in the Andes Mountains. Marijn requested more information about the snails and photographs to confirm their identifications. It turned out that some of the specimens from Puyo, Ecuador represented species previously unknown to researchers, including the newly-named Bourciera ovata.

With high resolution photographs of different aspects of the snail’s shell, Marijn was able to describe it as a new species, demonstrating a greater diversity of Ecuadorian land snails and the importance of having museum collection data accessible, as surely there are many more new species to be discovered. The research was published in September in the journal Folia Malacologica.

DMNH 151926, formerly thought to be *Bourciera fraseri*, is now the type specimen for the newly-discovered species *Bourciera ovata*. A type specimen is the specific specimen on which a new species is based. The museum’s mollusk collection already included around 1,200 type specimens. Photos by Alex Kittle.

Roosen, M. and Dorado, C. Revision of the genus Bourciera Pfeiffer, 1852 (Gastropoda: Helicinidae), with the description of six new species from Ecuador and Peru. Folia Malacologica, 30(3), 155–167. https://doi.org/10.12657/folmal.030.018

Taxonomy changes reflected in new specimen organization

The introduction of Bourciera ovata is just one example of how what scientists know about species and their taxonomy continues to develop. While working from home during the pandemic in 2020, Collections Manager Alex Kittle began reorganizing the mollusk collection based on updated information and species names, and later moved the actual specimens to reflect these changes. Information about our entire mollusk collection is now publicly available on the Symbiota portal, InvertEBase. Our collection profile shows 233,603 records are available online, representing 500 families and 15,658 species; 32% are georeferenced to specific locations.

Collection Manager of Mollusks Alex Kittle in the DelMNS scientific collections.

MOTUS detects Lesser Yellowlegs

A bird species that migrates through our area — a Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes) — was detected by the Motus Wildlife Tracking System (MOTUS) tower on the museum’s roof, installed by University of Delaware scientists in early 2021 to track movement of Purple Martins (Progne subis).

Lesser Yellowlegs © U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region

MOTUS is an international collaborative research network dedicated to tracking the migration of small birds, made possible by radio telemetry towers, which read the transmitter tags carried by birds that fly within about 15 km of the tower. Since our tower was installed, it has logged more than 3,200 readings.

The MOTUS tower was installed in early 2021.

The vast majority of detections are of banded Purple Martins, with some individual birds detected many times. The tower has also detected a few American Kestrels (Falco sparverius).

The tower detected the Lesser Yellowlegs on July 13, 2022. According to Dr. Nicholas Bayly, it had been banded in late April near Cali, Colombia, by researchers associated with Audubon Colombia and Asociación Selva, a non-profit organization supporting research and conservation in the Neotropics (selva.org.co).

After it was banded, the bird flew north and was detected by three towers in Missouri, and one in Michigan, before heading to our area. Five other MOTUS towers in our region also detected the bird, including Longwood Gardens. Dr. Matthew Halley, the museum’s Interim Curator of Birds, says the detection highlights the value of projects like the MOTUS program, which enable scientists all over the world to collaborate on migratory research.

This map shows the flight path of the Lesser Yellowlegs detected near DelMNS.

Wild and Scenic Film Festival

The Wild & Scenic Film Festival comes to the museum with three special programs developed for students as part of Plastic Free Delaware’s initiative to bring the films to schools in the Mid-Atlantic region. Each weekend is designed for a different age group – but all are welcome – and includes approximately one hour of short featured films along with themed activities.

Join us September 9-11, October 14-16, and November 11-13. Details are below for upcoming weekends!

The Wild and Scenic Film Festival on Tour has been curating and touring inspiring film festivals across the country since 2003, but Plastic Free Delaware is the first to bring their new grade-centered film programs to schools on the east coast. We’re delighted to host the program this year.

Show times:

5 p.m. Friday as part of Flex Hour Fridays, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

Free with general admission or with DelMNS or Winterthur memberships. Pre-registration is preferred for the Wild & Scenic Film Festival, regular museum admission may be purchased in advance or at the door.

October 14-16: Becoming an Activist and Activism through Art

Geared to grades 9-12

Featured films include:

An Alaskan Fight

Sometimes conservation can feel like an ultramarathon. In this short biopic, runner and wild fish advocate Sam Snyder fights for Bristol Bay, Alaska over the course of a decade and learns the meaning of home and place in the process.

Hidden Wild

Join science educator Alex Freeze as she takes three South Florida students on an expedition to discover the wilderness hidden in their own backyards.

November 11-13: Monarch Migration

Geared to grades 5-8

Featured films include:

Protecting the Monarch Butterfly

Monarch butterflies have one of the longest migrations of any insects, so they depend on critical habitats for their survival during their long journey. Organizations like the Pollinator Conservation Association are committed to protecting and restoring habitat to help save this iconic species.

If You Give a Beach a Bottle

Inspired by a picture book, Max Romey heads to a remote beach on Alaska’s coastline in search of marine debris. What he finds is a different story altogether.

The Wild & Scenic Film Festival School Program is partially funded by a grant from Delaware Humanities, a Delaware state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The screening of the Wild and Scenic Film Festival at the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science is supported, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com.

Our sponsors include:

The Wild & Scenic Film Festival was started by the watershed advocacy group, the South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) in 2003. The festival’s namesake is in celebration of SYRCL’s landmark victory to receive “Wild & Scenic” status for 39 miles of the South Yuba River in 1999. The 5-day event features over 150 award-winning films and welcomes over 100 guest speakers, celebrities, and activists who bring a human face to the environmental movement. The home festival kicks-off the international tour to communities around the globe, allowing SYRCL to share their success as an environmental group with other organizations. The festival is building a network of grassroots organizations connected by a common goal of using film to inspire activism. With the support of National Partners: Peak Design, Hipcamp, EarthJustice, Miir and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, the festival can reach an even larger audience.