NEW ACADEMY FACT SHEET

September 27, 2008

55 Music Concourse Drive
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA 94118

Phone 415.379.8000
Email info@calacademy.org
Web Site www.calacademy.org

Monday – Saturday: 9:30 am – 5:00 pm
Sunday: 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
Closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas

Lions, and cheetahs, and zebras, oh my! Take a virtual safari through Africa and encounter these animals —and many others—inside intricately crafted dioramas. Look closely as you wander through the hall, and you’ll find some live animals as well, including tortoises, lizards, and a colony of African penguins.

Walk beneath an 80-foot-long blue whale skeleton, gaze up at a towering T. rex, come face-to-face with a live rattlesnake, and marvel at dozens of other California treasures.Then track the potential impacts of climate change in California and around the world, and learn what you can do to help. Measure the impact of your family’s every-day decisions on a carbon scale, help polar bears move from one ice floe to another in an interactive Artic Ice projection room, and share your ideas for treading more lightly on the planet at the Academy’s feedback station.

It never rains at the Academy’s California Coast, an exhibit that highlights the state’s diverse marine environments. Watch waves roll onto a sandy beach, talk to scuba divers inside a 100,000-gallon rocky coast tank, play hide-and-seek with a giant Pacific octopus, and get a closer look at a Red-tailed hawk. You can even hold a hermit crab at the Discovery Tidepool and meet a 165-pound sea bass in the Tank of Giants.

Take your scientist-in-training to the Early Explorers’ Cove, a special exhibit designed for infants, preschoolers, and their caregivers. Tots can explore a 15-foot replica of the Academy’s 1905 research schooner, climb into a tree-house, tend a miniature organic garden, or crawl into a child-sized burrow. The exhibit is also well-stocked with books, toys, puzzles, and dress-up costumes.

Visit the remote islands of Madagascar and The Galapagos through the eyes of Academy scientists, and discover why islands function as laboratories for evolution. Examine specimens collected during Academy research expeditions, including Galapagos tortoise shells and Darwin’s famous finches. Learn how scientists search for new species, and then put your new knowledge into practice, netting virtual butterflies with Wii gaming wands and setting pit-fall traps for virtual beetles.

Leave Planet Earth behind as you fly to the farthest reaches of the Universe inside the world’s largest all-digital planetarium. A live presenter will take you on a guided tour of the solar system and beyond, using current data from NASA to produce the most accurate and interactive digital Universe ever created. During a visit to the international space station, you’ll gain a new perspective on your home—the only planet known to support life.

Have a question about the natural world? The reference librarians and educators at the Naturalist Center can help you answer them. Bring in your leaves, feathers, rocks, shells, and other personal treasures for identification, look up the latest research on green technologies, or sign up for a special program in the adjoining classrooms and labs.

Dive into the world’s deepest living coral reef tank without donning a wetsuit. Five underwater windows offer a fish’s eye view into one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. Find Nemo—and 4,000 other reef fish—darting through a technicolor forest of coral, watch garden eels emerge from their underwater burrows, and admire the brilliant hues of a giant clam. Up on the surface, follow a boardwalk through a mangrove lagoon, where sharks, rays and sea turtles cruise beneath your feet.

Step inside a living rainforest, where water dripping from the mahogany and palm trees sets the beat for a symphony of croaking frogs and chirping birds. Peer into one of Borneo ’s bat caves, meet chameleons from Madagascar , and climb into the tree-tops of Costa Rica , where long lines of industrious leaf cutter ants march along vines and hundreds of tropical butterflies flutter like colorful confetti. Finally, descend in a glass elevator into the Amazonian flooded forest—the land of anacondas, piranhas, and electric eels. An acrylic tunnel allows you to walk beneath the Amazonian river fish that swim overhead.

Go beyond the headlines and gain in-depth information about recent scientific discoveries around the world. Live talks by Academy scientists, audio-visual displays, computer stations, and podcasts provide a reliable source of timely and relevant news about the natural world.

Stop and smell the wildflowers during a visit to the Academy’s living roof, a 2.5-acre expanse of native California plants. Part of the museum’s green building strategy, the roof provides superior insulation, prevents storm water runoff, reduces the urban heat island effect, and creates new habitat for native birds, butterflies, and other beneficial insects. An engineering marvel, the seven hills of the living roof roll over the Academy’s major exhibits and echo the hilly topography of San Francisco.

Peer over the bronze railing of The Swamp tank if you dare—American alligators and alligator snapping turtles rule the water below. One of these reptiles, an albino gator with startling white skin, may steal the lion’s share of the attention, but it’s hard to ignore his neighbors for too long. Snakes, frogs, and salamanders live in smaller tanks nearby, and a biologist often brings a Great horned owl into the exhibit to meet visitors.

What does it take to live underwater? Find out in this innovative exhibit that includes more than 100 aquarium tanks filled with fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and other invertebrates. Once an hour, the lights go down inside the tanks, the room transforms into a 360-degree projection theater, and visitors are immersed in a five-minute video about the most precious resource on the planet: water.

Note: Prices include access to all components of the Academy experience, including all museum exhibits, aquarium displays, planetarium shows, and the living rainforest.

Adults: $24.95
Youth (ages 12-17): $19.95
Senior (ages 65 and over): $19.95
Child (ages 7-11): $14.95
Ages 6 and under: FREE

Discount for taking public transportation to the Academy: $3 per person

Many opportunities exist to visit the California Academy of Sciences during free days, including Wachovia Wednesdays (the third Wednesday of every month), Neighborhood Free Days (select weekends for San Francisco residents), and San Francisco’s Family Appreciation Day. All San Francisco school groups also receive free admission to the Academy.

Note: In most cases, memberships pay for themselves in just two visits.

Individual: $99
Includes unlimited admission for membership holder plus one guest

Senior (65 and over): $59
Includes unlimited admission for membership holder plus one guest

Family: $159
Includes unlimited admission for two adults and all children or grandchildren 18 years of age and under

Family Plus: $250
Includes all Family membership benefits, plus admission for two guests.

The California Academy of Sciences includes two culinary destinations run by renowned chefs Charles Phan (chef and owner of The Slanted Door) and Loretta Keller (chef and owner of COCO5OO). Both venues feature local, organic, sustainable foods.

The Academy Cafe offers healthy, kid-friendly, multicultural food that appeals to a wide demographic. It is open Monday–Saturday from 9:30 am – 5 pm and Sundays from 11 am – 5 pm.

The Moss Room is a full service restaurant that highlights the vital relationship between food and culture. Lunch is served daily from 11:30 am – 2:30 pm and dinner is served daily from 5:30 pm – 10:00 pm.

Designed by award winning architect Renzo Piano, the California Academy of Sciences sets a new standard for sustainable architecture. Supported by recycled steel, insulated with recycled blue jeans, powered in part by solar panels, and topped with a living roof, the building is the epitome of energy-efficient design. In October, 2008, the Academy was awarded the highest possible rating from the U.S. Green Building Council: LEED Platinum.

Total square footage in new Academy: 410,000 square feet. Total public space: 100,000 square feet. The new Academy has more useable square footage than the previous facility but leaves a smaller footprint in the park due to the addition of a basement and more efficient use of interior space.

The Academy is now taking reservations for private events. The first available date for private parties is November 1, 2008 . Event rental prices range from $4,000 - $30,000, exclusive of catering costs. The new Academy can accommodate seated parties of up to 1,000 people or receptions of up to 3,000 people. For more information, please contact Anne Rianda at arianda@calacademy.org or 415-379-5497.