Biology

See what lives under the water and how the food web weaves a story of the San Diego River ecosystem. From dragonfly to bobcat, each animal plays an important role in keeping the river healthy. Make masks and pins of animals that all take part in the creating a river that supports an abundance of life. Create an eco-edible bird feeder that is climate neutral and forest-friendly.

We will review how your body develops immunity with antibodies. Visitors will cut out paper antibodies to discuss how they relate to COVID-19 and vaccines. Visitors will construct a replica of a virus to explain the structure of viruses like COVID-19. Separately, we will bring a prepared petri dish sealed with bacteria expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) contained in a dark box. Visitors will shine a UV flashlight on the dish to see the bacteria glow. We will discuss GFP and immunology.

Magnolia Science Academy is a California Distinguished School. MSA is a public, charter STEAM focused middle school serving San Diego since 2005. Our student ambassadors and teachers will be engaging guests through several hands-on, interactive science experiments/activities such as elephant toothpaste, biome diorama, chemical reaction experiments and molecule sticks. In addition to hands-on science activities, we will also provide our guests with cool, interactive art and math activities.

EIS will be partnering with Science Delivered to offer fun, engaging, hands-on activities for children. We will have paper helicopters for children to make and take home. We will have items to demonstrate and represent different STEM fields, such as blocks for engineering, preserved marine specimens, simple chemical reactions, a drone on display, etc.

prize wheel, hands on paper activities

San Diego is an amazing place and it allows us to journey from our rich coastline to the mountains and from ancient forests to the rugged desert wilderness. Join the Nat as we jump into activities focused on our own backyard wilderness. We’ll explore native plants, animals that co-exist in our urban spaces and want we can do to help with conservation in this place we call home.

Demonstrations from our materials research science & engineering laboratories, including a mini-spectrometer, demonstration of a silicon photonic crystal as a chemical sensor, silicon lenses that transform your cell phone into a microscope

The City's Ocean Monitoring Program will be discussing the health of the ocean environment off both Pt. Loma and Imperial Beach. We will have preserved marine specimens available for viewing as well as videos showing our work at sea and the animals we encounter.

Hands-on interaction with live reptiles and arthropods.