Academy of Science

Remember a few posts ago in September, I wrote how Kiera and I had come to the Golden Gate Park to go to a museum because we thought it was free on that particular day.  Unfortunately, it ended up being the right day just the wrong month.  Well this time we went on the right day of the right month so we got in for free.  We went to the Academy of Science Museum.  It is a really neat museum.

The first section we went to was all about Charles Darwin and the Galapagos islands.  Thats where these turtles are from.  Aren't they so cute?  I decided I really need and should get a pet turtle. 

The muesum went from Galapagos Islands to Madagascar to these cute adorable peguins!  They were sort of randomly placed  in there. Then you walked through an African safari.

And here is Kiera picking the zebras nose. 

Next we went to a lecture on Snakes.  They showed us several different types of snakes and talked about the similarities and differences between them.  Did you know some snakes actually give live young?  I didn't, I thought they all laid eggs.  Pretty Interesting Stuff!

After the lecture we got to pet this beautiful Boa and get our picture taken with him.

Up on the top of the building is the "living roof."  It is a huge garden about 2 and a half acres, that covers the entire roof.  The little silver circles that you see are skylights.  There is an entire section of the museum that talks about going green and explains all the "green" elements of this building.  For example, the insulation of the building was made from blue jean scrapes.  Again Pretty Interesting stuff.

In the middle of the buiding there is a rainforest/green house.  I should have taken a picture of it because it doesn't really make sense trying to explain it.  Anyway, inside the rainforest there was tons of flowers and plants.  This flower was really neat because it actaully eats live insects.  They fly in the middle or sit on the edge and the flower snaps the top down and digests the little buger.

There were also tons of birds and butterflies flying freely all over the rainforest section. 

Once you get to the top of the rainforest you take an elevator down to the amazon.  This building is really so cool.  So this picture above shows how you can see up from the amazon, through the aquarium where the those huge fish are, up to the rainforest where we just were. Then all the way up to the ceiling where the skylights are.  That probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense but take my word for it, it was cool.

From the amazon you walk into a full on aquarium.  The aquarium was so extensive we spent a total of just under five hours at this museum and we only had time to get through like a 1/4 of the aquarium part.  We went to a dive talk where a diver goes down to the aqaurium, talks and anwsers questions about the fish and coral.  I thought all these fish were beautiful.

 

This was the cutest fish of all.  I thought the pokadots were so cute and unique.

This was the scariest sea creature of all.  A pokadot el. I would be pretty freaked out if he was swimming next to me.

After the aquarium we went to the swamps where we saw this albino alligator.  I know what your thinking, "he doesn't even look real," right, but I took a video of him just to prove he was defintely real and very much alive.  Unfortunately, blogger isn't letting me upload my video.  So a picture will have to do.  If anyone knows why I can't upload my video or has had a similar problem please leave a comment.  I could really use some help with this.  Turns out albino alligators are very rare and there are approximately only 50 of them in the world.  It is more likely for a alibin human to be born than an albino aligator.  Pretty Interesting Stuff. 

To finish off the muesum we went to a Planatarium Show.  This was a really neat show narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.  She told the story of how the very first star was formed billions of years ago and how the galaxy we have now formed.  Then finished with our night sky and what constallations and special stars we could see tonight.  We had a really great time.  I am so glad we got in free but if I had paid the $24 to get it in, it would have been money well spent and worth very cent. 

There is always so much going on at Golden Gate Park.  As we were leaving the museum there were all these people gathered at a festival, listening to live music.

Then as we were walking to the bus there was circle of people practing tricks on there bikes.  Again I got a pretty cool video but blogger wouldn't let me upload it.