Reading Explorer 3, Unit 8: Birth of a Rain Forest 

 

Narrator: Home to thousands of living animals and about 20 million specimens, the California Academy of Sciences is the largest green museum in the world.   

 

Chris Andrews: “Without a doubt, creating a living rainforest, inside a building, in San Francisco, is a challenge.” 

 

Narrator: This rain forest exhibit is like nothing else in the world.  Guests will walk up a spiral ramp, inside the glass dome, all the way up through the trees to the canopy.  Then they ride a glass elevator all the way down to a tunnel under the forest. 

 

There’s a lot of work to do to bring the rain forest to life. 

 

The first plants are in and the rain forest begins to take shape 

 

Chris Andrews:  “Well, what we’re standing here – with this great view, sort of halfway up the rain forest if you will, and it’s – you’re seeing the birth of a rain forest.  We’ve got our major trees in here now, there are about seven of those, and those are obviously going to grow in over time, and reach the top of the dome in here.”  

 

“So it’s hot, it’s humid. It’ll feel like a rain forest. It’ll smell like a rain forest. We toyed with the idea of getting some mosquitoes and having them go in here so, you know, just kidding, so you get the whole experience.”  

 

“But the goal really is to have people get kind of an essence of rain forest. You can never, ever, replace nature with these kinds of exhibits, but hopefully what we can do is give people just an inkling of what it might be like.” 

 

Narrator: From the treetops of the rain forest to deep underwater, the new aquarium will have the deepest tank for a coral reef in the world.  You could fill 5,000 bathtubs with all the water in the tank.  Where does all that water come from? Straight from the Pacific Ocean, so the fish and corals will be living in real ocean water. 

 

As the valves open, water starts to rush into the tank.  After several hours, the coral reef tank is finally filled.  Now it’s time to introduce the animals to their new home.  

 

Chris Andrews: “It is like a modern day Noah’s Ark in a way, except the animals aren’t coming in two by two. They’re coming in dozens or hundreds, or sometimes only in ones, and it’s the ones that are in ones that are obviously extremely precious.” 

 

Narrator: And one of those precious animals is Diego, the turtle. He will carefully be put into a tub and transported to his new home.   

 

Researcher 1: “He’s doing good.  He’s, uh, he’s very relaxed inside the tub here, so he should be really easy to move at this point.”   

 

“Got him?  

 

Researcher 2: “Yup.” 

 

Researcher 1: “All right.” 

 

Researcher 2: “Good job, Diego.” 

 

Narrator: Diego might rule the reef for now, but soon he will be joined by stingrays, sharks, and four thousand other fish at the California Academy of Sciences.