The Edith Winstone Blackwell Interpretive Centre

The Edith Winstone Blackwell Interpretive Centre will give the marine science laboratory a public face for the first time. The Centre's primary focus is to give visitors to the area an insight into the beauty and richness of Northland's (and New Zealand's) coastal and sea life; the purpose and value of marine reserves; the urgent need to sustain fish stocks; and an introduction to some of the world-leading work being done at the South Pacific Centre for Marine Science at Leigh.

A leadership gift from the Edith Winstone Blackwell Foundation Trust provided the funding for the Interpretive Centre, recognizing and honoring the great interest the Trust's founder, Edith Winstone Blackwell, had in the wealth, health and preservation of our marine environment and in the science of the seas.

The explicit goal of the Interpretive Centre is to inspire public, and in particular young people's, interest in science and the life and well-being of the oceans around them. The Centre plans to have an outreach programme for schools in the greater Auckland and Northland areas designed to offer students a more intensive and hands-on experience which will also fit with their schools' science and biology syllabuses.

The Interpretive Centre will contain displays on:

• the South Pacific Centre for Marine Science and the research conducted there;
• the history of Whakatuwhenua Bay and landscape;
• the National Sea Bird Centre;
• the open sea zone beyond the bay, including the Poor Knights Islands; and
• marine life and the life cycle of marine creatures.

The displays will reflect the latest and most visually exciting in public marine centre design and will include touch-screen displays, video documentaries and tank displays.

There also will be an information desk within the Interpretive Centre.