Turtle Travels

About the Traveling Exhibition

This interactive exhibition offers a turtle's-eye view of life in the slow lane. Visitors follow a turtle's footprints on a life-sized (12' x 24') board game and explore firsthand what it's like to be a turtle facing habitat challenges.

In an upbeat, engaging manner the board game presents a serious environmental message: turtles face threats from habitat fragmentation, "subsidized predators" and the international pet trade. At each interactive station in the game, visitors learn what they can do to help protect turtles and their environment.

Beyond the board game, in the anatomy section of the exhibition, interactive exhibits show how a turtle's shells and feet are adapted to different environments. Visitors can flip out different feet of the "Swiss Army Turtle" and can build the bony arch that makes a turtle's shell strong.

Visitors can watch footage shot by a "CritterCam" attached to a loggerhead sea turtle or pose for a photograph as a Turtle Traveler or Turtle Tracker. An optional crawl-under aquatic tank allows museums with animal husbandry capabilities to display live turtles in a way that gets kids nose-to-beak with the turtles inside. In the reading area, graphics illustrate traditional turtle and tortoise stories told by cultures around the world. Turtle ottomans and travel trunk offer a place to rest and look through one of the many turtle-themed books.