1. Chow Time
Program Outline
All ages
Last Updated 7/23/12
Description: During a half hour interval, the aquarium staff will give guests and their children a closer
look at what it takes to feed our animals. Using a museum cart, chalkboard “menus,” and puppets,
families will learn about the animals’ diets and be engaged in the feeding process.
Program Length: Half and hour
Program at a Glance:
Description of what each animal eats
Fish
Turtles/tortoises
Blue-tongued skink
Chameleon
Making of salads
Feeding fish
Feed worms to turtles
Feed skink, box turtles, and chameleon
Take out an African Spurred tortoise and feed big salads
Materials
Set up
Cart
Small bows for chopped items
Plates for feeding
Chalkboards with “meals”
Puppets
Feeding
Thawed brine and mysis (6 cubes each)
Water-soaked monkey biscuit

2. Lettuce and various chopped vegetables
15-20 worms in a bucket
A couple handfuls of crickets
Diaper for tortoise
Procedure
Set up
• First, talk to front desk about Chow Time and put up posters.
• In the back, using a beaker filled with water, thaw 6 cubes of brine and 6 cubes of Mysis.
• Take out the worms and put about 15 in a bucket.
• Get a monkey biscuit, put it on a plate, and submerge in about 0.5 cm water.
• Bring vegetables behind tortoise enclosures and chop sweet potatoes, carrots, cucumbers,
and other vegetables and separate into bowls.
• Bring out cart and arrange bowls of veggies, brine and Mysis, and worms.
• Get menus and write each “meal” for the tanks.
• Finally, put out puppets.
Clean up
• Wipe down cart of any salad remains, and put away
• Take down menus and put away puppets
• Remove any Chow Time posters
Objectives
With more interactive methods of feeding, guests will appreciate the structure, they will learn
more about the animals, and they will feel more a part of a solid program.
Children will have many things to hold their attention, and therefore space will be used more
efficiently.
With children occupied well, adults will be more able to ask their own questions.
Overall, each person will be as engaged as possible so that they may maximize their enjoyment
in our small space.

3. Discussion
Regular text indicates facilitator. Bold face indicates anticipated student responses. Italics have
been used for directions for those leading the program. Information in italics is only for
facilitator's background knowledge.
Stand at cart, and ask people to circle around. Welcome to the Berkshire Museum and our
aquarium! My name is Tara, this is John, and we’re going to be guiding you through our animal
feeding today. Before we start, I’d like to remind everyone to please not tap the glass - it scares
the animals, especially if they’re eating.
Over here we have a bunch of puppets and stuffed animals that you can play with. Unfortunately,
they’re not for sale, but feel free to pick them up, or even look for that animal around the
aquarium. We also have “menus” for the animals. There are more specific ones hanging next to
each tank, if you’re curious as to what each individual animal is eating.
Okay, let’s begin! Feel free to ask me any questions, especially if you want to learn more about a
certain animal.
While we are making salads here, John will be feeding the fish in the background. Feel free to
help with salads or watch along the fish tanks behind me.
So today, we’re going to make salads which we will feed to the turtles. As you can see, we have
fruits vegetables which include sweet potatoes, cucumbers, apples, pears, carrots, etc. You guys
can help put a bed of lettuce on each plate, and then shred it up as much as you want. The only
rule is that we must control how big our salads are. Let’s start with the lettuce, and then I’ll put
the vegetables on the plates.
Guide kids with food. While making salads, talk about fish diet.
We generally feed frozen shrimp, and sometimes standard fish food. Occasionally we feed some
smelt, which is another kind of fish. Remember the food chain they showed you in school? Well
we have to follow it here to mimic what the fish would eat in the wild. So now John is going to
start with this tank on the left, and move down across the wall. See if you can identify which
food is brine and Mysis shrimp, and which may be other dry food. Also, please ask if you have
any questions about how the fish eat.
Lastly, before we give the salads to the tortoises, we like to add vitamins and minerals that will
help them grow and be healthy. I’m going to take two scoops of each mineral and put them on
the big salads, then one scoop on the little ones.

4. We generally feed frozen shrimp, and sometimes standard fish food. Occasionally we feed some
smelt, which is another kind of fish. Remember the food chain they showed you in school? Well
we have to follow it here to mimic what the fish would eat in the wild. So now John is going to
start with this tank on the left, and move down across the wall. See if you can identify which
food is brine and Mysis shrimp, and which may be other dry food. Also, please ask if you have
any questions about how the fish eat.
John/I will feed brine and mysis/freeze dried krill to appropriate tanks.
Now we’ll feed this side, starting with the Massachusetts turtles. Don’t worry if they start
fighting…they tend to. They won’t actually hurt each other, but I’ll make sure to watch if I have
to pull them apart. We’ll feed them worms, then our salads that we made.
John/I will go behind and feed each turtle some worms. Then place salad and monkey biscuit in
skink enclosure. Give salad to the box turtles.
Before we feed the final tortoises, we’re going to feed the chameleon. It’s so cool to watch him
eat, but the glass is really small. So I’m going to ask that if you see him eat a cricket that you
step aside and let another child watch.
Okay, now, here’s our last salad feeding! Bring out tortoise with a diaper on. Let’s all go in the
Discovery room so we can form a circle around her. She gets scared easily while she’s eating, so
please don’t touch her.
Place salad in the middle of the room, and put the tortoise in front of it. When she’s done, ask
John to put her back in her enclosure.
Anyways, thanks for coming to chow time! You were all such great participants. I hope you
enjoyed it! Feel free to stick around, ask any questions you want, and have a good rest of your
day!