The children can dress up as divers and pretend to swim and explore the life-sized underwater cave, finding out who lives there. Alternatively a young visitor could dress up as a hermit crab, a shellfish, a ray or a mermaid and practice scampering, scuttling and gliding.
Children can go into the camouflage tunnel to try to spot the sea creatures who blend into their surroundings. Or they may like to put on one of the camouflage aprons and find a place in the tunnel to catch a creature that matches their outfit.
Children can sit inside a giant shell to imagine what it is like to live in one, before handling the selection of shells and taking up any one of a number of challenges - such as to find the biggest and smallest shell, or to find two the same colour, or the same weight.
A big beach hut provides a base for storytelling from a range of books with a seaside theme. The hut is also stocked with puppets and children are encouraged to make up their own stories or to act out 'Hermit Crab's Hunt for a Home'.
Satrosphere's weekend manager Ann Beaton said, 'This exhibition is different from what we have done before. Although we always try to have something for everybody, this has simpler things for the younger ones to do. We want them to touch and to try and to be able to do what they want.'
'On the Beach - Under the Sea' runs until 30 April. For more information telephone 01224 640340.
