The Living Planet

On a recent Wednesday, Sally Curletto brought her second-grade class from Sunset View Elementary School in Provo to the Living Planet Aquarium.

Curletto said studying the sea life at the aquarium coordinates with class curriculum requirements.

"We study plants and animals and the environment," she said. "I just thought it was a fun, educational experience for (my students)."

Students were especially excited to touch the Southern Pacific stingrays, with their stingers removed, in the touch pool, Curletto said.

Curletto's students were only a handful of the thousands of visitors who come to the Gail Benjamin Living Planet Aquarium Preview Exhibit, 765 E. 10600 South, Sandy. The facility opened the doors on its current location in June of 2006 and has been warmly welcomed into the city thus far, said Janis Pierce, aquarium marketing director.

"This is a preview exhibit of what we would like the large, full-size aquarium to be like," she said.

The Living Planet Aquarium was originally located in The Gateway in downtown Salt Lake City, with plans to build a full-size aquarium there. However, funding to build the facility was slow in coming, so it was relocated to Sandy. The initiative to provide funds to build the aquarium didn't make it on the Salt Lake County ballot in the November election, so Pierce said the future of the aquarium's location remains to be seen.

"We've been so warmly welcomed in Sandy, who knows what will happen," she said.

The aquarium doubled in size when it moved, going from 10,000 square feet to more than 20,000. Soft music serenades visitors as they observe the various forms of sea life the aquarium houses. Visitors can experience the Utah Waters and Wetlands Hall to see marine life native to Utah, such as the Great Salt Lake brine shrimp and bluegills. Younger visitors can sit in the captain's seat and pretend to be piloting a Great Salt Lake research boat while watching educational programs.

Plans are on the drawing board for an empty hallway adjacent to the Utah Waters Hall to host a new Utah Endangered and Threatened Species exhibit, but the aquarium is seeking donors to help provide funding. Pierce says they also hope to eventually open a tropical life exhibit.

The Marine Hall features saltwater fish, jellyfish, a 100-year-old lobster and the aquarium's most recent addition, the Bio-facts Station. One of the most popular occupants of the exhibit is a giant Pacific octopus.