The Virginia Living Museum is buzzing with a travelling exhibit, Amazing Pollinators.
The exhibit teaches how pollinators help the ecosystem and food supply. It also offers information about how to help pollinators where you live.
The focal point is a playable maze filled with hundreds of interactive flowers in different environments. The lotus flower blossoms in the rainforest and saguaro cactus thrives in desert. For the night pollinators, there are moon flowers glowing under ultraviolet light.
The maze takes guests through survival missions from groups of pollinators including bats, bees, beetles, birds, butterflies, moths, flies and wasps.
Six different missions for each pollinator group become increasingly complex. Guests experience what is like to be a hibiscus bee, soldier beetle or ruby-throated hummingbird. The missions demonstrate the daily challenges of being a bee, for example.
The game parlor has classic games with a pollinating spin. Games include mason bee mancala, invasive species shuffleboard and mutualism dominoes.
This exhibit received the 27th annual Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement from the Themed Entertainment Association.
There will be two shows daily. The Pollinators & Pals Animal Show introduces Virginia native species and how they interact with pollinators. Science Show Live includes a science demonstration.
The exhibit will continue until Sept. 18. For details and tickets visit www.thevlm.org.
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