Photo: Quartz crystal. USDA

Click here for the Rocks & Minerals online handout.

Each week in the Naturalist Center, we take elementary school-aged children on Science Story Adventures. We look at a different theme connected with the natural world and the exhibits in the Academy, and explore it through stories, activities and crafts.

Now you can continue your adventure at home with this online handout. It includes the planned learning outcomes of the Science Story Adventure, which are usually drawn from the Science Content Standards for California Public Schools. Can’t remember the title of the books we read or how to do that craft? It’s on the sheet. We’ve also included a list of resources – books, DVDs or websites – for further exploration.

Check out this week’s featured specimen!

(Pictured below, really close up!)

Photo: © Friman

Can you guess what it is?

Here are some hints:

• This type of specimen was used in some of the pyramids of Egypt.
• It is very common and makes up a large part of the continental crust on Earth.

Leave us a comment with your answer! Then come see us in the Classroom on Sunday, July 29th at 2:30 pm for Science Story Adventures to see if you’re right and to learn more about this specimen. Science Story Adventures is our program for children ages 4 – 8 and their caregivers. In the program, we explore the natural world through stories, specimens, games and crafts.

Photo: NASA

Celebrate the 43rd anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission at the Naturalist Center tomorrow, July 20, 2012, 11 am-4 pm! Play games and take a peek at related books, models and artifacts, including an American flag that traveled to the Moon and back aboard the Apollo 14 lunar module. For this week’s Naturalist Center Craft, make a lunar phase flip chart to better understand why our natural satellite looks different in the sky during the course of its orbit. After visiting the Naturalist Center, go back down to the main level, across from the Foucault pendulum, to see a Moon rock collected from Apollo 17, the last manned lunar mission.

Photo: Brown bear (Ursus arctos) footprint. © Jan van der Crabben

Click here for the Animal Signs online handout.

Each week in the Naturalist Center, we take elementary school-aged children on Science Story Adventures. We look at a different theme connected with the natural world and the exhibits in the Academy, and explore it through stories, activities and crafts.

Now you can continue your adventure at home with this online handout. It includes the planned learning outcomes of the Science Story Adventure, which are usually drawn from the Science Content Standards for California Public Schools. Can’t remember the title of the books we read or how to do that craft? It’s on the sheet. We’ve also included a list of resources – books, DVDs or websites – for further exploration.

Photo: Great blue herons (Ardea herodias). George W. Robinson © California Academy of Sciences

Click here for the Fathers online handout.

Each week in the Naturalist Center, we take elementary school-aged children on Science Story Adventures. We look at a different theme connected with the natural world and the exhibits in the Academy, and explore it through stories, activities and crafts.

Now you can continue your adventure at home with this online handout. It includes the planned learning outcomes of the Science Story Adventure, which are usually drawn from the Science Content Standards for California Public Schools. Can’t remember the title of the books we read or how to do that craft? It’s on the sheet. We’ve also included a list of resources – books, DVDs or websites – for further exploration.