California Science Center Field Trip

Last week, my class went on a field trip to the California Science Center, which is actually just across the street from campus. Even after being here for 3 months, I still hadn't been to any of the museums nearby, so I was really excited to go. I was really excited to come to school in LA because of all the fun things to do around here, but I often find myself getting caught up in the campus bubble. I've barely explored LA, which is sad because that's one of the biggest reasons I wanted to come to USC.
Over the next few months, I'm excited to go hiking and explore some other museums, but first, let me talk about this trip ;)

The science center is actually really big, and there are tons of exhibits on everything from the human body to animals to weather systems and different biomes and ecosystems. First, we headed upstairs to the human body exhibit, which was really cool because of all the different visual representations of different body systems. Although it was definitely geared towards younger visitors (my 11 year-old brother would love it!), I still had a good time guessing the heart rates of differently sized animals. The coolest thing I saw was this latex model of our lungs and the alveoli that air travels through. It's so intricate and it's incredible to me that this exists in our bodies.

After this, we went outside to the touch tank and marine biome, which was fun because I absolutely love the ocean and ocean organisms. In bio this semester, we learned about several of the organisms that live in the ocean as we traced the tree of life, and it was so fun to be able to recognize ctenophores and cnidarians with my fellow nerds. I loved how vibrant these starfish and sea urchins looked in the touch tank! We also went downstairs to the aquarium, which was pretty small and shallow, but still cool because you could see the kelp "forests" and eels and little fish.

After the aquarium, we went to this hangar outside to see the space shuttle the Endeavor! This was really special to me because 20 years ago, when my father worked for BF Goodrich in Minnesota, he was part of a team that worked on it. Since we only had two hours, we had to leave at this point, but I had an amazing time getting to know my classmates outside the classroom, and I can't wait to go back.

Sophia, Nate and I by the Endeavor!