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Georgia Southern Museum invites public for Shark Week
Actual operating hours during the week 2-5 p.m. Sunday; 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. Tues.-Fri.
SPECIAL PHOTO/Georgia Southern Museum Framed by megalodon jaws, Georgia Southern Museum staff members – left to right, front row, Assistant Director Lashanda Hicks-Griffin and student assistant Sydney Kelly; back row, graduate assistant Stephen Cravey, st
Framed by megalodon jaws, Georgia Southern Museum staff members – left to right, front row, Assistant Director Lashanda Hicks-Griffin and student assistant Sydney Kelly; back row, graduate assistant Stephen Cravey, student assistant Micayla Civetta (dressed as shark) and student volunteer Nathan Chapman – express their excitement about Shark Week. Incidentally, the jaws are a replica, but the museum’s collection includes many real shark teeth, including those of the giant, long-extinct megalodon. (SPECIAL PHOTO/Georgia Southern Museum)

The Georgia Southern University Museum will celebrate July 10-16 as Shark Week, publicly showcasing the museum’s considerable collection of fossil shark teeth and related material, offering fun activities such as a shark scavenger hunt and even aiming to counteract misconceptions for viewers of certain televised Shark Week programming.

At 2142 Southern Drive, facing Sweetheart Circle on the Statesboro campus, the museum will be open for its normal operating hours, which are 2 p.m.-5 p.m. Sunday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. The museum is closed Mondays and Saturdays, so Shark Week visits will actually be limited to regular hours Sunday, July 10, and Tuesday through Friday, July 12-15.

“It’s for all ages,” said the museum’s Curator of Education Stephanie Lukowski. “We’re going to have a ton of shark-themed activities, special shark exhibits in all of our halls, so not just highlighting the fossil sharks but highlighting cultural connections of sharks and the importance of sharks to our modern ecosystems, as well as in the past.”

The GS Museum has three exhibition halls:  the Hall of Natural History, which highlights the natural history of Georgia’s Coastal Plain and regularly exhibits fossils, such as fossil shark’s teeth, including those of the giant, long extinct megalodon; the Hall of Cultural History, featuring artifacts and information on the prehistoric and historic peoples of the region; and the Temporary Gallery.

Currently, the Temporary Gallery contains an exhibit about pollen, entitled “Pollen Nation,” curated by Professor Alan Harvey, Ph.D., of the GS Biology Department. For the coming week, a connection with sharks has been found even for plants, so the scavenger hunt will send museum visitors to all three halls, Lukowski said.

Guests who successfully answer the 10 questions of the scavenger hunt questionnaire will receive “a special shark prize,” she added.

In addition to the replica megalodon jaws that are regularly available for photo opportunities, a college student-sized costume shark will make appearances to greet children and have pictures taken.

 

Megalodon lecture

Toward the end of Shark Week, the museum will also sponsor two special, public presentations, one in Savannah and the other at the museum in Statesboro.

Douglas Duch, who has reportedly donated all of the megalodon shark teeth on display at the museum after finding some by scuba diving in the Savanha River, will deliver a free lecture Thursday, July 14, at 7 p.m. at Savannah Coffee Roasters, 215 W. Liberty St., Savannah.

His lecture is entitled, “Megalodon: The Biggest Shark You’ve Never Seen.”

 

‘I Am the Shark’

Then, on Friday, July 15 at 1 p.m., student staff members at the museum on the Statesboro campus will lead a story-time reading of “I Am the Shark” by Joan Holub in the Hall of Natural History.

While new to the museum, a “Shark Week” during the summer of course isn’t a new idea. A focus on shark sightings, and the very rare occasions when sharks bite people, has long been a beach-season staple for regional television news bureaus, and at least one national channel fills a Shark Week timeslot with feature programming annually.

“Discovery Channel started Shark Week a while back, but shark teeth are the state fossil of Georgia, so we have no shortage of shark teeth here,” Lukowski began explaining when asked, “Why Shark Week?”

“And unfortunately, sometimes on the Discovery Channel some of their programming isn’t quite educational, so we get people coming in talking about things like, ‘Oh, megalodon is still alive,’ when that’s not the case at all,” she said. “So, we wanted to do this as a museum to kind of dispel some of those myths that are out there and celebrate our state fossil.”

Incidentally, the museum’s Shark Week does not coincide with the TV channel’s. But July 14 is Shark Awareness Day, although exactly who made it so isn’t clear from many websites that note the day.

Lukowski, who previously worked for a collective of museums in western Colorado, arrived as the GS Museum’s curator of education one year ago this week. She set to work redesigning the education program to reflect the new exhibits that debuted when the museum reopened to the public last October. Pandemic concerns had previously lengthened a closure for extensive renovations.

“I’ve been working on programming for school groups and fun things like Shark Week for everybody,” she said. “I think Shark Week is going to be a lot of fun, and this is our first year doing it, so if we get a lot of visitors, I hope we can grow and add extra things next year.”

 

Free parking

Parking for museum visitors is free, either with a printed day pass or a code for the Georgia Southern parking app, both available in the museum lobby.