The Smithsonian's National Zoo is bringing 16 larger-than-life animal sculptures made entirely of marine debris collected from beaches. The sculptures graphically illustrate the tragedy of plastic pollution in our waterways. The Washed Ashore exhibit is completely interactive and will span the Zoo's main walkway. We are expecting 1 million visitors during the exhibition and are creating extensive educational curriculum to inspire people to make better choices for ocean health.
This exhibit has to be privately funded. Our mission is to inspire people to care about habitats and wildlife. We feel that this exhibit will forever change people's perspectives about single use plastics and how their actions impact the environment and sea animals that they care about.
We are training docents to interact with our guests about ocean health. They will be asking people to take a pledge and post their pledge through social media to stop using plastics.
We are expecting at least one million visitors during the time the exhibition. The sculptures will line the main walkway and every guest will have the opportunity to touch the art and meet our volunteers to learn more about how their actions affect animals and habitats.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
