At the National Aquarium in Baltimore, the excited members of the audience carefully choose their seats as they file into the auditorium for the dolphin show. It’s well known that if you sit in the first few rows, you are almost guaranteed to get wet as the playful dolphins use their powerful tails to splash the audience.

But beyond that, most visitors to the show don’t know much about dolphins or the ocean world they live in. And that’s what the aquarium staff is trying to fix with its latest show, called “Our Ocean Planet.”

“We wanted to take people under the water,” says Allison Ginsburg, manager of dolphin training for the National Aquarium. “Dolphins spend so much of their life under the surface.”

The show’s creators hope that interest in dolphins will cause more people to think about the ways that oceans are being harmed by pollution, the warming climate and other global changes.

Dolphins are great ambassadors for the ocean because people love them: They are cute, curious, friendly and great performers. Here are some cool facts that will help you appreciate these amazing animals even more:

• It is believed dolphins can see in color as we do, and their hearing is far superior to ours.

• Dolphins can reach speeds up to 25 miles per hour!

• Dolphins make five sounds to communicate with one another: whistle, squeak, click, jaw pop and splash. Scientists are trying to “decode” the dolphin language to understand what they are saying.