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I had not been to the California Academy of Sciences since it re-opened, mostly because it costs thirty dollars or so now. This is a what, infinity percent increase over what we paid when I was a kid? Because it was free then.
But this is the week of my birthday, and Emma wanted to take me someplace fun, and also I found a discount from the credit union, so off we went. I had a load of fun, but I'm kind of disappointed in the remodel.
Mainly, I don't feel that it really warrants the title "Academy of Sciences." Maybe "Academy of Zoology and a Planetarium." Yeah, that. Or possibly "The Insititute of Globular Structures." The old Academy was an old-fashioned science museum, and of course it needed updating, but it had a lot more earth science and just a greater variety of everything. It seemed bigger in the old days, actually, though I think the new exhibits take up the same total footprint. I think a lot more of the floor space is devoted to crowd control. The Hall of Man, which was fantastic in its later incarnation (which my father worked on along with a lot of other people), disappeared before the remodel, so I can't complain about that right now. But the Hall of Minerals, and all the cool stuff on that side of the academy, is gone without a trace, and the rather recent animatronic history of life is gone as well, and all the stuff about time and timepieces, which may have been kind of miscellaneous but it was wonderful. It's also open fewer hours. Also, where are the damned dolphins? I thought the dolphin fountain was supposed to have been preserved. I know the pool that was in front of the DeYoung Museum across the concourse was moved to the back so as not to disturb the modernists, but I saw no sign of the dolphin fountain. And that was a marvelus, marvelous thing.
The pendulum is back, and it's cool, of course, but it is truncated. Instead of being suspended over a vast pit so that it goes around a huge circle, the bottom of the pendulum is a much smaller circle at floor level. It's kind of nice, but the old pendulum was breathtaking and mesmerizing. I didn't see any kids glued to the pendulum yesterday, begging to stay long enough to see another peg knocked over.
Three of the biggest exhibits on the ground floor - the planetarium, which I didn't go to this time, the rainforest exhibit (about which more in a minute), and the earthquake exhibit, were all housed in spheres. They look a little awkward, honestly. Emma thought they looked dated. I thought they would look less funky when they got a little older -- they would start to look like old Art Deco oddities or something. The rainforest exhibit is probably spherical for functional reasons, since I do know it has some fancypants green energy thing going on to provide the hot, moist atmosphere the plants need without burning up too much electricity.
The rainforest is really effective. That's some great crowd control, for one thing. There's a spiral ramp that takes you through the layers of the exhibit, and nobody, not even a manic preschooler, was going the wrong direction, even though there is not a one-way sign anywhere. But anyway. The exhibit itself is pretty great. They've populated it with birds and butterflies (hence you must enter and exit through a tightly-controlled vestibule and they check you on the way out to make sure none of the butterflies are hitching a ride to make a getaway into the cold world outside). It's basically a very nicely presented, clean little zoo. The signs are more informative than they are elsewhere in the academy also.
On the way out you pass under the exhibit through a Flooded Amazon exhibit that mostly consists of fish. Lucky me, I got to sit under the watery tunnel with Emma, who told me all about all the fish and explained about the different kinds of armor that different fish have developed. So sharks have little teeth all over their skin, and these other fish have bony plates, and these other fish have cartilage growing in their scales, and I forget what all else. Also, if you tap on the tank where some goldfish live, and you take water from the tank and pour it into a tank of piranhas, they will go into a frenzy, because they are closely related and the thing that all those kind of fish do is to react energetically to vibrations in the water and to put meseenger chemicals in the water about their reactions.
By the way: don't. Goldfish hate having their tanks tapped.
I think I ran out of space, so I'm stopping here. I have Words about the World of Water exhibit downstairs (it needs better signage, the projected material is cool, the plastic watery walls is not) and the remnants of the old aquarium (it's nice they used some of the tiles and railings, but I think they could have done more), but oh well.
But this is the week of my birthday, and Emma wanted to take me someplace fun, and also I found a discount from the credit union, so off we went. I had a load of fun, but I'm kind of disappointed in the remodel.
Mainly, I don't feel that it really warrants the title "Academy of Sciences." Maybe "Academy of Zoology and a Planetarium." Yeah, that. Or possibly "The Insititute of Globular Structures." The old Academy was an old-fashioned science museum, and of course it needed updating, but it had a lot more earth science and just a greater variety of everything. It seemed bigger in the old days, actually, though I think the new exhibits take up the same total footprint. I think a lot more of the floor space is devoted to crowd control. The Hall of Man, which was fantastic in its later incarnation (which my father worked on along with a lot of other people), disappeared before the remodel, so I can't complain about that right now. But the Hall of Minerals, and all the cool stuff on that side of the academy, is gone without a trace, and the rather recent animatronic history of life is gone as well, and all the stuff about time and timepieces, which may have been kind of miscellaneous but it was wonderful. It's also open fewer hours. Also, where are the damned dolphins? I thought the dolphin fountain was supposed to have been preserved. I know the pool that was in front of the DeYoung Museum across the concourse was moved to the back so as not to disturb the modernists, but I saw no sign of the dolphin fountain. And that was a marvelus, marvelous thing.
The pendulum is back, and it's cool, of course, but it is truncated. Instead of being suspended over a vast pit so that it goes around a huge circle, the bottom of the pendulum is a much smaller circle at floor level. It's kind of nice, but the old pendulum was breathtaking and mesmerizing. I didn't see any kids glued to the pendulum yesterday, begging to stay long enough to see another peg knocked over.
Three of the biggest exhibits on the ground floor - the planetarium, which I didn't go to this time, the rainforest exhibit (about which more in a minute), and the earthquake exhibit, were all housed in spheres. They look a little awkward, honestly. Emma thought they looked dated. I thought they would look less funky when they got a little older -- they would start to look like old Art Deco oddities or something. The rainforest exhibit is probably spherical for functional reasons, since I do know it has some fancypants green energy thing going on to provide the hot, moist atmosphere the plants need without burning up too much electricity.
The rainforest is really effective. That's some great crowd control, for one thing. There's a spiral ramp that takes you through the layers of the exhibit, and nobody, not even a manic preschooler, was going the wrong direction, even though there is not a one-way sign anywhere. But anyway. The exhibit itself is pretty great. They've populated it with birds and butterflies (hence you must enter and exit through a tightly-controlled vestibule and they check you on the way out to make sure none of the butterflies are hitching a ride to make a getaway into the cold world outside). It's basically a very nicely presented, clean little zoo. The signs are more informative than they are elsewhere in the academy also.
On the way out you pass under the exhibit through a Flooded Amazon exhibit that mostly consists of fish. Lucky me, I got to sit under the watery tunnel with Emma, who told me all about all the fish and explained about the different kinds of armor that different fish have developed. So sharks have little teeth all over their skin, and these other fish have bony plates, and these other fish have cartilage growing in their scales, and I forget what all else. Also, if you tap on the tank where some goldfish live, and you take water from the tank and pour it into a tank of piranhas, they will go into a frenzy, because they are closely related and the thing that all those kind of fish do is to react energetically to vibrations in the water and to put meseenger chemicals in the water about their reactions.
By the way: don't. Goldfish hate having their tanks tapped.
I think I ran out of space, so I'm stopping here. I have Words about the World of Water exhibit downstairs (it needs better signage, the projected material is cool, the plastic watery walls is not) and the remnants of the old aquarium (it's nice they used some of the tiles and railings, but I think they could have done more), but oh well.
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You're a world traveller. Have you been to the Natural History Museum in Berlin? That's gorgeous too.
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So is it still an aquarium? I hadn't been to the old one since I was a teenager I think, so my memories are very old.
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The alligator exhibit still exists. It uses the original tile and fencing, but it's smaller and contains only one, albino alligator. it's a very big albino alligator! It's really quite cool.
I found out how bad it was to throw money in the alligator pool late and then I had to feel bad about the toxins I had put in the water.