"Rising Tide" exhibit at New Jersey State Museum

TRENTON - New Jersey State Museum officials want you to imagine walruses swimming along the state's coastline and wooly, gray musk oxen roaming the terrain.

That might seem like science fiction, but it's actually a look at New Jersey more than 100,000 years ago. And while those creatures are gone, officials say learning about them can provide a valuable lesson to children and adults visiting the exhibit "Rising Tide: Climate Change and New Jersey."

Yesterday, fourth graders bustled about the exhibit, their excited cries echoing off the tile floors. One cried out, "Oh my God! Is that real?" while standing eye-to-eye with a massive, stuffed musk ox. Others gathered around the fossilized skeleton of a moose-elk. They stood gazing upward in wonder at the 7-foot skeleton, found in Princeton.

According to museum curator Jason Schein, these creatures demonstrate that Earth's climate always has been changing and that it continues to change - now, especially because of greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions. The exhibit allows visitors to examine the consequences of and possible solutions to climate change.

"A general snapshot that I give to people to describe this whole exhibit is that it's kind of an exploration of the past, present and future of climate change," Schein said.

Aside from the preserved animals and massive fossilized bones, the touch-screen quizzes and tutorials are popular among the children, along with a few touch-friendly mastodon bones.

Visitors follow human and animal footprints on the exhibit floor through New Jersey's climate-change history. Posters outline how expanding fossil-fuel consumption spiked greenhouse gas concentrations around the onset of the industrial revolution.

A map shows which resources New Jersey currently harnesses for energy. Another diorama displays native migratory bird species, such as the red knot, that are threatened by global warming.

"We tried not to be too alarmist," he said. "The hard thing with that is, all this is very alarming. . . . You don't want to sugar-coat it. But if you just scare the living daylights out of people, they won't pay attention to you at all."

Schein said one portion likely to hit home with all taxpaying visitors outlines the financial burdens of climate change.

"Basically, the point we're trying to make here is that there is no industry in the state of New Jersey that will not be affected by climate change," he said. "And in almost every single case, it will get more expensive."

After passing through the past and present of New Jersey's climate-change history, visitors get a glimpse of the future.

One interactive display allows the viewer to test the energy consumption of older and newer, energy-efficient light bulbs. Another shows the benefits of recycling and possibilities for alternative energy sources like wind, solar, and harnessing ocean tides.

Though the subject of climate change is daunting, Deborah Crowell's students took to the topic with gusto.

She said her fourth graders, from Lyndhurst, had been discussing climate change for the last week in preparation for Earth Day on Wednesday.

She said the exhibit was a powerful educational tool, and that it probably would make the climate change issue "more real" to her students, who busied themselves snapping photos of the animals and bones on digital cameras and cell phones.

For Robert Saperstein, a supervisor of educational programming for the New Jersey Juvenile Justice Commission, the exhibit put children from the commission in touch with the reality and severity of the issue.

"You've got to think of the future. You've got to think of your kids, your grandkids," he said.

The exhibit, created with a $500,000 pledge from Public Service Electric & Gas, will be on display through Jan. 24.

"Rising Tide" is in the Main Building first-floor gallery. The New Jersey State Museum is at 205 W. State St., Trenton. The main building and auditorium are open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays and state holidays.EndText