Every day before the Museum opens, the Discovery Guides meet to talk about the upcoming events, puzzle over the new things we notice in the exhibits or with the visitors, hash out better ways of doing things and then set up everything fresh for the new day. As with many jobs, there is an amazing amount of detailed work that helps run a place, things you wouldn’t think about. One of those details is the ceremonious task of “seeding the pennies.”

Each morning a Discovery Guide makes the journey up to the Front Desk and then back again with sagging pockets that faintly jingle with sounds of coins. No, the Discovery Guide is not raiding the till, s/he is collecting currency from the Gravity Well* to take to the shipwreck where the foreign currency we can’t cash and a portion of the pennies that are donated are carefully scattered, buried and hidden for the joyous treasure hunters that are sure to come.

What we have found is that the pennies are then often taken back to the front of the Museum, spun through the Gravity Well, where they are collected the next morning and put back in the Shipwreck, thus continuing the cycle. What has pleasantly surprised us is how often we see adults adding to the cycle by emptying their own change purses and pockets into the sand to help spread the joy of discovery.

* Gravity Well: the mystifyingly simple contraption with which you entice your children with spinning coins to get them from their favorite exhibit and on the way to the car without throwing a tantrum