875 Howard Street – the staff has moved, the research collections have moved, the animals are out, so what’s left at the Academy’s temporary home? A few odds and ends in the basement, and until recently, hundreds of empty aquarium tanks, cages, and terrariums.

Now, those pieces are on their way to new homes. The largest tanks, at 20 feet across (below, right), had to be cut in half to fit out the door. Some of the equipment is being re-used behind-the-scenes at the new Academy. And just about everything else has been donated to other institutions in the Bay Area, which will re-use the equipment for their own exhibits and educational programs. Read more here.

If you’ve visited the Academy’s exhibit on climate change, you may have seen a wall labeled “Share Your Ideas,” where visitors can post their thoughts on how to lessen their impact on the environment (if you haven’t seen it, it’s pictured below, left). In search of a more sustainable source for the tags on the wall, our creative services department and our printer Paragraphics came up with a great solution: re-using make-readies.

What’s a make-ready, you ask? It’s the paper that goes through the press to perfect the ink coverage and colors for a print job. Paper often goes through the press several times before being recycled, and the effect is interesting layers of text and graphics on one side. The other side is blank for writing on. Paragraphics has offered the Academy free use of their make-readies, and they even trimmed and punched the paper to fit the current specs of the posting board. Kudos to those who put this creative, sustainable idea into practice!