Life! Beginnings | California Science Center's New Exhibit

The California Science Center has long been one of the kid's and my favorite places to explore in Los Angeles. It was the very last place we visited before the world shut down in March of 2020. And because of that, it was one that we often thought about and missed.

When it reopened this year, we were eager to visit, and did so the first chance we had. Lucky for us, we were right on time to see their latest exhibit Life! Beginnings.

"Life! Beginnings celebrates life's incredible ability to make more life. Discover how humans and all living creatures reproduce, develop, and pass on their genes to bring new life into the world."

Like most exhibits at the California Science Center, Life! Beginnings has many interactive components.

Unbeknownst to them, the boys performed several animal mating dances, built a baby pigeon by mixing and matching its parents’ genes, and practice different parenting strategies from the animal kingdom.

They really enjoyed experiencing life cycles as live sphinx moths transformed from hungry green caterpillars to fuzzy moths the size of their hands.

And they loved going inside the immersive womb room where they got to experience the human journey from conception to birth. The fetal reconstruction at each stage were an absolute wonder for my boys, as they asked question after question about what it was like to carry life and have them in my tummy. They were particularly interested in the 16-week fetus, as that's when mommy started to feel their movements.

Warning: Parents, if you have yet to have a "birds and the bees" talk with your children, you may want to prepare yourselves for several interesting talks.

The below installation in particular yielded several loaded questions from my boys. Because P and Sky love video games, they just had to play!

Tip: My answers were extremely technical and had nothing to do with male/female interactions. Just cell talk. "Two cells must combine to create a baby. These long wiggly cells have to join the big round cell, and you're helping them find their way to it." It seemed to do the trick with my boys. No further explanation was necessary

As always, we absolutely loved spending the day at the California Science Center's many galleries and exhibits. We had lunch, and explored for hours.

For more on Life! Beginnings go HERE.

Life! Beginnings is located on the second floor World of Life gallery. This new exhibition is the first phase of a planned renovation of the entire World of Life gallery.