NEWBURYPORT — Not many 13-year-olds have a corner of a museum they can call all their own. But local teen Parker Jackman spent the summer making sure he can do just that at the Custom House Maritime Museum.
The young intern spearheaded the design and creation of an integrated whale ecology exhibit that includes the songs the large mammals sing piped in through speakers in the basement.
Jackman said he spent roughly 15 hours a week interning at the Custom House this summer.
“I have a passion for learning about history and I’m really into maritime history,” he said. “I guess you could say I’m really into boats.”
Custom House Director James Russell said the museum hopes the new exhibit will draw attention to its burgeoning discovery center for local school kids.
“I hear the whales, all day long,” he said. “It’s pretty neat.”
Russell said the rising River Valley Charter School eighth-grader mined the museum’s collection of anatomical pieces from the Kendall Whaling Museum, including the filter-feeding system of a baleen whale, as well as a rib, left mandible and vertebrae from a different species.
Jackman also found a skull that Russell said likely came from a pilot whale.
All the pieces became a part of the new exhibit, which is located just by the stairs as well as the discovery center in the museum’s basement. It also includes a display on whaling.
Jackman said it took him about a month-and-a-half to put the exhibit together. He even built the wall the exhibit is mounted on.
“It’s pretty amazing,” he said.
He added working with the whale parts themselves was his favorite part.
“Working with bones from a real whale was a really pretty cool experience,” Jackman said. “I look at the mandible and think, if it’s this big, how big is the whale itself?”
Spending so much time with whale remains, Jackman said, fired up his imagination.
“I never had a huge interest in whales before,” he said. “But I have done a lot of research for this project and they’re pretty cool.”
Russell said it was the young man’s high degree of ingenuity and initiative that let him know he could safely put Jackman in charge of the new display.
“I gave Parker some parameters and sent him right to work,” he said. “There was very light supervision and he was a pleasure to work with.”
Russell has made it his mission to turn the discovery center into a must-see destination for local middle and high schoolers.
“About 30% of our visitors are kids,” he said. “So we want to give them fun, learning opportunities. Particularly ones that are related to science, technology, engineering and math.”
Offering interactive exhibits like the one Jackman put together, Russell said can differentiate the Custom House from other museums.
“We think this will align very well with our volunteer and intern interests,” he said. “We’re also looking at investing in making at least two thirds of the building handicap accessible.”
Jackman, the son of the former Custom House Board of Directors Chair Ken Jackman, said his father’s involvement with the museum was just one reason why he was interested in spending his summer there.
“I’ve been driving boats down the Merrimack River since I was 4 years old,” he said.
Classes at the River Valley Charter School start up again on Aug. 27. But Jackman said he hopes to continue his internship with the Custom House well into the fall and winter.
“I think I’ll continue here. But probably for a lot less hours,” he said.
Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Newburyport for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.