Share a Steinhart Story

We love your penguin puppet show so much!! Thank you for creating a great core memory to my nanny babies. We’re still waiting for the spotify version of your penguin song.

Back in the fall of 1978, I had just started working at Macy’s Union Square, and was living down the Peninsula. The Academy had an exhibit about Shakespeare (I’m still not quite sure how that fit with the usual mission but I'm pretty sure it was you who had it) but wasn’t open on any weeknights. I was too nervous to ask for time off, so told my staff I was going to leave for a couple of hours one afternoon and work that evening. Which I did, and enjoyed my visit. When Christmas came around, my team remembered how much I wanted to go to this exhibit so gave me a membership at CAS! I have been a member to the present day – even though literature hasn’t featured much in your displays since. Some of your member lectures left such an impression on me (poisonous bird talk given when you were located downtown, and Dr. Slowinski's talk), and I love being able just to "pop in" .

One of my favorite memories is performing with the San Francisco Ukulele Rebellion in front of the Reef Tank for the “Beyond the Reef” NightLife event in January 2019. The staff was great to us and being able to play “reef music” in front of that amazing tank was an amazing experience. Thank you for the opportunity!

I am a close neighbor of the academy and have always been a member. Once particular memory stands out. After picking up my son at preschool we would often stop at the Steinhart Aquarium to visit our favorite creatures. One I particularly remember was a manatee who had been rescued from a fish market in Columbia, South America. Named "butterball" he was our favorite!

I joined CAS when I moved to San Francisco in 1986. I took one of the courses offered at the time - basic physics - and was astonished at all that had been learned in physics since I took it in college 20 years earlier. I'd love to re-take such a class now to find out what has been learned in the subsequent 35 years!

I spent my first seven years of life living on 9th Ave and Fulton. Remaining in the Richmond District all my sixty years, the "Aquarium" (Steinhart) and Hall of Science has always been a part of my life. So many memories, but my fondest were all my visits just to see my special friend, a huge fantastical Sea Being who lived in a large corner tank. I would run to the window and put my hand on it, talking to him as he would come up to the window to greet me. I loved watching him eat whole heads of lettuce. He was probably the first Animal I bonded with outside my home where I had a Dog and Bird I loved. I also loved this Beautiful Being. I had named him early on, but while I knew it all these years, my old brain is blanking at this moment. I only recently read it was Butterball. It would be sometime after our meeting before I even knew they called him a Sea Cow. As an adult I gravitated towards Manatees and realized that's what he was. In hindsight I felt bad he lived in such a small space for his size, but I read it was ideal for his health needs, and was comforted that he was well-cared for. I'm happy to have those memories of time spent with Butterball and the joy he brought me.

Thank you so much for growing my love for science as a young child. My mom would bring me here as much as she possibly could, to feed my ever-growing curiosity for life, and it definitely worked. I hold the Academy very close to my heart and constantly reminisce on all my experiences here. The planetarium helped kickstart my love for space and our place in the cosmos, the aquariums and animal exhibits for learning as much as I can on all creatures, for the earthquake exhibit really helping me get into history, and for so much more. I hope to eventually bring my friends and even my children here, so that they may feel the sheer love I have for this place.