It was a day of fun and discovery at the Cal Academy!

I think it’s safe to say we all came away having seen or learned something interesting! The California Academy of Sciences is full of amazing exhibits! We thoroughly enjoyed all the Cal Academy had to offer – the planetarium, rainforest, the earthquake exhibit, the aquarium, the living roof and more!

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One of the highlights was definitely the shows at the Morrison Planetarium!

We caught two different shows: ‘Dark Universe’, narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, which is all about dark matter and dark energy, and ‘Life: A Cosmic Story’ where we learned all about how life on Earth began!

We had a wonderful time exploring the rainforest.

It was amazing seeing the three different rainforest eco-systems inside the huge, beautiful rainforest dome. Butterflies fluttered around us (and landed on a lucky few), we saw many birds flying about, all kinds of exotic reptiles and amphibians as well as plenty of snakes and spiders!

The Aquarium was a lot of fun!

The Steinhart Aquarium  is home to approximately 40,000 animals – from the brightly colored fish from the coral reef of the Phillipines, to the creatures from California’s coastal eco-system. We got to get up close and personal with the sea creatures in the Discovery Tidepool, too.

Skulls, skulls and more skulls!

We were lucky enough to get to see the new and temporary exhibit all about skulls – 640 of them! As well as the hundreds of skulls to look at, there were interactive activities to do, a chance to learn about human origins and a freaky display of flesh-eating beetles!

The Living Roof

We loved going to the very top of the Academy and checking out the Living Roof, which they say has around 1.7 million plants growing on it, captures storm water and insulates the building!

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Of course, we took time to say hi to Claude!

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The deYoung Museum

We finished  off our day with a visit to the very top of the deYoung Museum, which gave us a terrific view of the Academy of Sciences!
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A big thank you to Jessica Wirth and Jessica Turner for providing the fantastic photos!