Families in the Ottawa-area have long known how much fun a day at The Canadian Museum of Nature can be, but who knew they’d be this much fun to work with?

After helping the museum make a big splash with Whales Tohorā, the museum had High Road help spread the word about its newest special exhibition, Nature Unleashed, which is in town from September 28 to May 5, 2013.

Nature Unleashed focuses on four types of disasters—earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes— and for its stop in Ottawa, the museum added a special display about the 1998 Ice Storm that walloped Ontario and Quebec, as well as an interesting timeline of significant natural disasters in Canadian history.

The exhibit allows visitors to simulate what happens when standing inside a roaring tornado, trigger earthquakes, simulate tsunamis, create virtual volcanos, and step inside a hurricane booth that blasts you with 45 mph winds (toupees and Marilyn Monroe type gowns not recommended).

While almost any kid will find these activities entertaining, the true value in the exhibit is how educational it is. At a time of increasingly unpredictable wild weather, Nature Unleashed does an amazing job of explaining how and why these natural disasters occur.  Visitors will learn about the shifting effects of tectonic plates, discover how human beings adapt to living at risk, and be genuinely inspired by the resiliency of disaster survivors.

Local media had no problem seeing both the relevance and importance of the new exhibit as virtually all the city’s top outlets were able to attend the media preview, including The Ottawa Citizen, The Ottawa Sun, CFRA, Metro, the EMC, the CBC, and CTV.

With High Road’s help, the museum was also able to arrange a handful of fun TV segments with CTV Morning Live, Rogers Daytime and The Weather Network’s Natalie Thomas. The National Post’s Karen Hawthorne was also nice enough to stop by the exhibit during her weekend visit to Ottawa, while both Canoe and The Toronto Sun ran excellent slideshows of Canadian Disasters Throughout History. The museum also conducted some great giveaways with Jewel FM and some of the city’s top bloggers (Ottawa Valley Moms, Momstown, etc.).

The reviews of the exhibit have been anything but disastrous so far, and families really seem to be enjoying the fun interactive displays. (After all, what kid doesn’t think volcanoes are cool?)

So, if you have some time over the holidays, be sure to head down to The Canadian Museum of Nature. Admission is half-price for children (age 3 to 12) from Dec. 4 to 24, 2012.

 

Last week, in collaboration with The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI), we were pleased to launch their 2011-2012 annual reports – both dynamic, online explorations into the year gone by.

High Road Communications is proud to continue working with TOH and OHRI in different areas, most recently re-launching worldclasscare.ca and tomorrowscaretoday.ca to highlight accomplishments from 2011.  The result is two functional and visually stunning sites that offer stakeholders, and the community in general, easy access to compelling content. And similar to last year’s online-only reports, which we were also happy to work with TOH and OHRI on, these demonstrate their commitment to staying green.

Building on last year’s success, for 2011-2012 we focused on taking storytelling to the next level – and the stories TOH and OHRI shared are simply incredible. 

 

Our team attended a truly innovative neurosurgery and learned from surgeons across many disciplines how cutting-edge technology and expertise is helping TOH’s talented team change practice and save lives through minimally invasive surgery.

We also interviewed a Canadian diplomat injured in Afghanistan and saw firsthand how TOHRC’s innovative virtual reality technology has made all the difference in her rehabilitation.

Finally, we spoke with OHRI researchers and discovered how stem cell research is making tomorrow’s healthcare possible for today.

In order to celebrate the people who power these world-renowned institutions and showcase these amazing written and video case studies, we also stepped up the design and functionality of this year’s reports with:

• Engaging design and compelling photography: the design of each report highlight some real, behind-the-scenes moments with staff, volunteers and patients using vibrant photography and captivating video to give users a glimpse of a day at the hospital.

• User-friendly, any time, anywhere experience: Accessible from any device, information in these reports can be found within just two clicks from the homepage. Background photography scales to size (eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling), and touch-friendly mobile versions are optimized specifically for iPhone and iPad—which many hospital staff depend on for their day-to-day workflow.

• Shareability: Highly social, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are baked in to the experience, allowing both reports to easily be shared across the community, instead of simply key stakeholders.

All in all, we had the opportunity to meet passionate staff and volunteers, patients with incredible stories of struggle, recovery and triumph, and researchers that are making leaps and bounds in their fields.

High Road is honoured to be a part of sharing these stories, and want to congratulate TOH and OHRI on another wonderful year of patient care, research and creating hope for the future.

Be sure to check out the TOH 2011 – 2012 Annual Report and OHRI 2011 – 2012 Annual Report.

Two articulated sperm whale skeletons are a highlight of the exhibition (© Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 2008)

When the Canadian Museum of Nature asked High Road Ottawa to help promote the launch of their biggest exhibit since completing major renovations, Whales Tohorā: The Exhibition, we naturally dove right in.

Not only were we excited for the chance to work with a museum that showcases so many natural history treasures, we were thrilled about the prospect of scoring a sneak preview at the museum’s latest world-class offering… and as luck would have it, so were virtually all of the city’s media.

Having just finished up a successful run at The Field Museum in Chicago, Whales Tohorā was set to open in Ottawa just in time for March Break (March 2nd) and run through the summer (to September 3rd). On loan from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Whales Tohorā features cultural storytelling, interactive science, massive skeletons—including a 58-foot skeleton of a bull sperm whale—and life-size displays such as the Volkswagen-sized model of a blue whale’s heart.

So, with the internationally-renowned exhibit only in Canada for the second time during its illustrious run, the Canadian Museum of Nature naturally wanted to make a big splash. Working together to secure media for the sneak preview of Whales Tohorā, the museum and High Road were able lure in all the big fish including CTV, CBC, APTN, The Ottawa Citizen, Metro and EMC, not to mention many of the city’s top bloggers.

Leading up to March Break, the Museum was also lucky enough to take part in two fun segments with Rogers Daytime and CTV Morning Live. And, in addition to the live remote the museum already had planned with Majic 100, High Road was able to help facilitate a great interview with CFRA’s Shelley McLean, two amazing Whales Tohorā giveaways on 93.9 BOB FM and The Jewel 98.5 FM, and a spot in The Toronto Sun and Canoe slideshow, Deals on March Break Travel.

With more and more local families and tourists surfacing each day, there’s no doubt that Whales Tohorā will become one of the museum’s most successful and well-attended exhibits to date. After getting our feet wet with the whales, High Road Ottawa hopes this is just the first of many opportunities to work with the Canadian Museum of Nature.

If you’ve never been to the museum, make sure you plan a visit before Sept. 3. It’s safe to say that, like us, you’ll have a whale of a time.