New Brockville Aquatarium exhibit connects kids to agriculture and the Seaway

A ship is one of the items children can interact with in the new Port of Johnstown Interactive Exhibit at the Aquatarium in Brockville, Ont. (Nate Vandermeer/CTV News Ottawa)

A new interactive exhibit at the Aquatarium in Brockville, Ont. is highlighting the Port of Johnstown, and it is designed to teach children about the importance of agriculture in the region.

The Port of Johnstown Interactive Exhibit uses plastic balls to show the process of farm to table, including things like harvesting, trucking, drying, storage, and loading ships that use the St. Lawrence Seaway to get commodities to their final destination.

"We have everything that talks about the agriculture, the Seaway, how the Port of Johnstown interacts between those things and it talks about what really goes on in our region," Aquatarium executive director Thomas Harder said. "The Seaway, movement of the goods, all of those things very important to our region."

The exhibit is a full-time attraction at the Aquatarium, showcased in their front window, and is accessible with general admission.

The former council of Edwardsburg-Cardinal invested $180,000 to the exhibit over the next three years.

Thomas Harder controls a crane to move plastic balls from one area to another at the Aquatarium in Brockville, Ont. The museum has opened the new Port of Johnstown Interactive Exhibit. (Nate Vandermeer/CTV News Ottawa)

The Port of Johnstown was also a donor to the exhibit, and worked closely with the Aquatarium team to build the one of a kind display. 

"We actually met with (Edwardsburg-Cardinal) mayor at the time, Pat Sayeau, and he did a presentation at our Seaway 60th Anniversary," Harder said. "It was fascinating. We talked about it as a team and more and more we did get involved in how all the physics and the engineering and the stem learning that actually goes on within the port, all of these things work together with what goes on regionally and we just said we need to do an exhibit about this."

"It's important to talk about this regionally because so much of that goes on around us," Harder added. "I mean looking out the window right now at the Seaway and I know that this stuff goes right past us. What is it? We need to be relevant to those things."

Harder noted that the Aquatarium is a regional attraction and it is important to showcase the types industry in this area the Seaway relies on.

"We're also working together to promote jobs in these industries, because let's face it - farming, there's not enough people doing it, not enough marine workers to move these boats, and not enough people at the port," Harder said. 

"We need young people to understand these jobs are real, there's a lot of learning and a lot of hands on that goes along with it, and we want to encourage them to be part of that."

Children can climb into a combine harvester, dump truck and ship, and can control various items to pick up and move the plastic balls to each destination. 

"The reaction has been amazing, people gravitate to this coming in the front door," Harder said. "We've had people say, 'I can't get my kids out'. They'll come in, they'll spend an hour here, they'll go upstairs and play and they will be back down here for an hour at the end."

"I've had so much fun with it myself, I can't drag my own kids out so it's been good," he smiled. 

The Port of Johnstown Exhibit is one of four new things to see at the Aquatarium in 2023; including a sand table and draw alive, which both use virtual reality, and a 360-degree planetarium experience.