CA Academy of Sciences

AFter nearly a decade of planning the CA Academy of Sciences opened their new facility in Golden Gate Park at the end of September. An aquarium, a rain forest, a planetarium, penguins, an albino alligator, a big blue whale skeleton, all under a living roof! Need I say more? This place is incredible. So incredible that the crowds on the weekends are larger than the place was designed for. I recommend waiting a few months. or go very early. My friend and I got there at 10:30 am on a Saturday and the lines to get in were just as long when we were leaving at 2pm. The exhibit spaces are nicely laid out, look easy to change, well lit and a lot of interaction. The dioramas of African animals are exquisite and really make you feel like you are there. One feature I especially liked was the interspersion of live animals/bugs/fish in with the textual exhibits and taxidermed animals. The CA Academy of Sciences has been around since 1853. They actually put some very old specimens collected at the turn of the century on display. Another room I enjoyed was the "Naturalist Center" which seems to be a dumping ground for stuff they didn't put in the exhibit halls. Drawers full of bugs, fossils, shells, bones it's all so cool. I wish there was a bit more educational material about a lot of the live animals on exhibit. But the place is new, they made add more signage in coming months. My other suggestion would be to reconfigure some of the space to accommodate the large crowds, but that may change in the coming months. The living roof is fantastic, it's like 2 acres of park was lifted and the museum put in underneath. The whole place was so extraordinary I'm not just a visitor - I'm a member!