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150 Years of Science:
Exploring Nature's Wonders
Opens to Public March 1, 2003
SAN FRANCISCO (February 27, 2003) - The California Academy of Sciences
will open a new exhibition celebrating its 150th Anniversary on March
1, 2003. 150 Years of Science: Exploring Nature's Wonders, will take a
close look at the Academy's long history of research, education and public
programs. Visitors will also have the opportunity to see many previously
unseen treasures from the Academy's collections and to view plans for
the Academy's future.
"In 1853 San Francisco was a new city with a band of citizens who
had a desire to better understand the natural world and to share that
knowledge with others. The California Academy of Sciences - San Francisco's
oldest and largest cultural institution - was created from that desire
for knowledge," said Dr. Patrick Kociolek, curator and executive
director of the California Academy of Sciences. "150 Years of Science
tells the story of our first 150 years of exploring and explaining the
natural world. I am especially pleased that we will be able to share some
of our less well-known endeavors with our visitors, including our many
domestic and international research expeditions and collections of over
18 million research specimens."
150 Years of Science features an enormous timeline streaming through the
Academy's exhibit halls, giving visitors the opportunity to walk through
150 years of history as they learn how world events and major discoveries
have shaped the pursuit of science and the Academy. Visitors will have
the opportunity to learn, for instance, that in 1878 the Academy became
one of the first institutions of its kind to have women members and that
soon after that the Academy employed its first paid female curators.
Outposts placed in exhibit halls will detail each of the Academy's areas
of focus, from the science of herpetology to the craft of designing and
building exhibits. These mini-exhibits will allow visitors to learn more
about individuals involved in the Academy and their work, using scientific
specimens, pictures and historical information. In one location, three
giant Galapagos Islands tortoises from the Academy's collections will
help tell the story of the Academy's 100 years of research on the islands
that helped inspire Darwin's theory of evolution.
Throughout the exhibit, special "kid zones" will offer children
the opportunity to see, and in some cases, touch, specimens and live animals
from the Academy's collections - including a live scorpion and mounted
beetles. Placed at a child-friendly height, these kid zones were created
to offer children the feeling of participating in the process of scientific
discovery.
Throughout the Academy, additional historical markers will highlight innovations
like the Academy's coral reef tank or items of historical interest such
as the Steinhart Aquarium's 75 year-old Swamp. The markers will show what
these spots were like when they were new and learn why they are significant
today. For instance, visitors will have the opportunity to learn that
the Steinhart Aquarium's oldest inhabitant, an Australian lungfish named
Methuselah, arrived in 1938, already a fully-grown adult.
A large plasma television screen will show clips from the Academy's pioneering
science television show, Science in Action, which aired nationally from
1950-1966.
About the Academy
The California Academy of Sciences is the oldest scientific institution
in the West, founded in 1853 to survey the vast resources of California
and beyond. Today it has grown to be one of the ten largest natural history
museums in the world, with important exhibitions about natural sciences
and human cultures.
The Academy is also an international center for scientific research and
is at the forefront of efforts to understand and protect the diversity
of life on earth. A staff of over 50 professional educators and Ph.D.-level
scientists (supported by more than 100 Research and Field Associates and
over 300 Fellows) work in the fields of anthropology, botany, entomology,
herpetology, ichthyology, invertebrate zoology and geology, mammalogy
and ornithology. Each year, Academy scientists go on dozen of expeditions
around the world, conducting groundbreaking environmental research and
adding to the Academy's collections of over 18 million scientific specimens.
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