Extra Credit: Birch Aquarium Family Day

 



Recently I had the great opportunity to attend the San Diego Birch Aquarium's family day. This was a great event to attend with family members in order to expose young kids in marine science and the ocean's ecosystem. If the children are too young to go out and snorkel, visiting aquariums are a great way to engage kids with the ocean. Each exhibit that inhabited creatures was designed to resemble their native habitats. The Birch Aquarium exhibit designers did a great job resembling the creature's native habitats.

 

The event consisted of self-guided tours around the aquarium and small interactive events in their tide pool area. When walking around the kids have the ability to look at the creatures in several different exhibits. It was obvious to see how the children reacted towards the colorful animals versus the dark ones. They are attracted by colorful bright tropical fish.  

The bright exhibits resembled tropical climates and the darker were usually connected to Mediterranean climates or open sea. It is very important to keep the exhibits as closely to the organism’s natural habitat. This will let the organism feel in a comfortable location and would react the same way it would in the wild. This includes having the right temperature, terrain, and salinity level. Some of the creatures are born in the aquarium but there are also some that were placed in certain exhibits for recovery.

At the Birch Aquarium there is a sea turtle that will no longer be able to survive in the wild. It was attacked by a shark and is missing a back flipper and the other back flipper is severely damaged. For this reason, the sea turtle floats in an improper way but can still survive at this aquarium since they are fed.

In class we have learned about nanotechnology, at the birch aquarium there was an exhibit that talked all about nanotechnology and how it is being used to clean salt water. The idea was to use cleaning nanoparticles to remove the salt and turn it in to freshwater.

This aquarium is not nationally known, however, it is definitely a place to come and enjoy  a fun day with the family. I am glad I was able to bring mine because I feel it was a great way to show my family how beautiful the ocean is and the research I get to work with.

Extra Credit: Hoover High School Showcase at Museum of Contemporary

This week I attended an art showcase created by high school students from Hoover High School. It was a combination of a couple courses: ceramics, music, painting, and psychology. Students were asked to create an art piece expressing a subject learned in class and to make it their own. There were people showing their handmade musical instruments, using recycled material, showing portraits, and a girl was performing her art piece the entire night. This entire showcase showed how art, creativity, and a bit of thought, can be expressed in many ways.

When I first entered this gallery, I was amazed to see so many young faces. As we have learned in class, there are less young art enthusiasts. Seeing so many students interested in showing off their art piece to their parents was fascinating. I do understand this was a class project but after hearing the excitement in their conversations, it was obvious this meant a lot for them. 

Hoover high school is an inner city school located in a low-income community in San Diego. Students that attend this institution often do not get exposed to art events like these. Exposing art students is important and often triggers staff members like Mr. Moya and Mr. Hieu to push for events like these.

 

Throughout the gallery art pieces were hanging from the ceiling, being performed, on the wall, and there were structures created from recycled materials. Each piece unique in its own way. I was amazed at the performance from one of the student artists. During the entire time she was performing her piece, "What has the fashion media done to you?" She never broke character and expressed her emotions throughout the night. Like we have learned, art comes in different shapes, methods, and unique styles.

A section that confused me was called "How does propaganda get to you?" There were pictures taken of close-up objects. I did not understand what was the propaganda behind the images but I definitely felt interested by the pictures. With my midterm invention I probably would have been able to understand more. 

This gallery was a great experience definitely helped me see that high school students can make amazing art that makes you think. Every piece had me wondering what was the inspiration and time to create. I encourage people to attend galleries like these and support inner city schools.

Event #3: San Diego Ruben H. Fleet Science Center

For my third event, I attended the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center located in San Diego's Balboa Park. This science center is an artistic masterpiece connecting science and math in an educational space. At this location there were several exhibits showing illusions, space projects, physics, robotics and much more. Many of the exhibits were meant to educate all ages and some were easy to understand. Combining art, math, and science is an attractive way to display the features and mechanisms behind each exhibit.
 

Although the majority of exhibits were meant for all ages, there was a small room along the top floor dedicated to younger children. The picture above shows myself at the children's section, which at first, it seems like a common play place. However, there were activities meant to challenge the child’s mind via science subjects. Physics played a major role in these activities. There were small tables where kids could build things and destroy them. These activities involved parents and their children in a fun science learning environment.  

Other exhibits, as seen in the picture above, were a challenge to understand. Using mirrors and reflections this exhibit displaced a hallucination of a spring. When I first saw this exhibit, my first reaction was to immediately put my hand in there. I kept searching for the spring but couldn’t find it.  By using light and mirrors, the image of a spring appears, where nothing is physically located. This is a very entertaining and mind puzzling exhibit to interact with and mind puzzling . 

The proper use of art is what makes this hallucination display exciting. Properly placing the right mirrors and shining the right light, resembles an artistic illusion. An artistic illusion that in a way plays with your mind. As we have learned in lecture the mind and brain can react in different ways based on experiences. This exhibit definitely gave me an unexpected experience.  My body knew I was going to touch a spring, but nothing was there.  This is how experiences send signals to the brain that trigger different physical sensations influencing our mental state. I was in a mental state of disbelief, and continuously kept trying to touch something that was not there.

Aside from the children’s section and hallucinating exhibits, the Ruben H. Fleet provides a wide variety of educational science games/exhibits. There is a NASA program that students can take part in by going through a space mission and completing the tasks real astronauts would perform. While I was there, they were also working on a new exhibit involving circus games. I was not sure of the purpose but it looked like they were attempting to connect circus games and science, there as a basketball toss game using beach balls and air propulsion. The San Diego Ruben H. Fleet Science Museum is a really entertaining and educational science museum that families should visit and check out.