BayCare Kids exhibit at Clearwater Marine Aquarium

New at Clearwater Marine Aquarium: BayCare Kids Check-Up Exhibit

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A new partnership between Clearwater Marine Aquarium and BayCare Kids is teaching kids about how important it is to take care of their own health, just like how CMA cares for its animals. You’ll find the exhibit in the Mangrove Key Kids Zone.

Visitors will get a peek inside the surgery center where animals get their checkups, and they can step onto the “Weight Your Turn” scale to see how much they weigh (and even how much their entire family weighs together!) compared to animals at the aquarium.

A young boy in a bright green rash guard and patterned swim trunks smiles excitedly with his arms outstretched while standing in shallow water at a colorful water park. Behind him, vibrant blue, red, and yellow water slides and play structures tower under a partly cloudy sky.

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“They’ll be able to see the similarities between themselves and the marine animals we care for – dolphins, manatees, turtles and more,” says Joe Handy, CEO of CMA. “This exhibit shows that we’re all connected in the need for health and wellness. At CMA, we believe that humans and marine life share a deep connection.”

This is just the first phase of the exhibit, with more to come over the next few years. But with health on the mind and spring break upcoming, we decided to catch up with BayCare Kids Pediatric Service Line Director Dr. Christina Canody to get a few tips on staying healthy this season.

Let’s talk flu. It’s already been a rough season for families, and it sounds like you aren’t expecting things to level off quite yet in March.

Dr. Christina Canody: We have seen unprecedented rates of influenza this year, and not only have there been a lot of infections, but they've been more severe. So we've seen increases in hospitalizations and even deaths across the country.

We feel like there's still a big risk because we usually see another increase here in Florida around spring break when we have so many families traveling to this area and also families traveling elsewhere that can contract the virus and bring it back to our area.

What can we do to prevent flu and other illnesses?

Dr. Christina Canody: One of the biggest things you can do is good hand washing and good hand hygiene. A lot of parents will “wash the day away” when their kids get home. That's important, making sure kids are washing their hands before they eat, and then also after touching shared surfaces when you're traveling.

And if you're feeling sick, it's important that you get tested. Number one is that there are treatments for the flu that you can give in the early days when first diagnosed, which will prevent it from getting so severe. The other thing is to make sure it's not some type of bacterial illness that you really need to treat with an antibiotic or something else.

We can channel back to the pandemic days, but we could all use a refresher. How long should we wash our hands to get rid of all of the germs?

Dr. Christina Canody: For most people, about 20 to 30 seconds is adequate for the time, and I always say fronts, backs and in between fingers, so soap gets on all the surfaces.

This exhibit is a great way to help ease kids' fear of visiting a doctor.

Dr. Christina Canody: That’s one of the big things we call White Coat Syndrome, where they don't like to go to the doctor. They think of it as a scary place, but if they see animals in their environment, being cared for by their own doctors … they see that checkups aren't so bad, and that sometimes, even if you're sick, they help them feel better.

 

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Originally published in the March 2025 issue of Tampa Bay Parenting Magazine.