Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
June 17 - 21, 2013

 Activities Options

Thursday, 6/20, from 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. is reserved for Activities within Pittsburgh, each led by two CMU graduate students. All three activities are located a short walk from CMU. The activity choices include:

	Phipps Conservatory Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, a great steel and glass Victorian greenhouse, has been inviting visitors to explore the beauty and mysteries of plants since 1893. Set amidst one of Pittsburgh's largest greenspaces, Schenley Park, Phipps Conservatory stands as a cultural and architectural centerpiece of the city's Oakland neighborhood. In recent decades, Phipps has evolved into one of the region's most vibrant, thriving cultural attractions, bringing fresh perspectives and artists into our historic glasshouse environment. Phipps has also become a strong advocate for advanced green-building practices, sustainable gardening and a new environmental awareness.
	Natural History Museum Carnegie Museum of Natural History was founded by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1896. It maintains an international reputation for research and is ranked among the top five natural history museums in the United States. The museum holds some 22 million specimens, of which about 10,000 are on view at any given time and about 1 million are cataloged in online databases. The museum first made history in 1899 when its scientists unearthed the fossils of Diplodocus carnegii. Today its dinosaur collection includes the world's largest collection of Jurassic dinosaurs and its Dinosaurs in Their Time exhibition offers the third largest collection of mounted, displayed dinosaurs in the United States.
	Cathedral of Learning The Cathedral of Learning, a Pittsburgh landmark listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh's main campus in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Standing at 535 feet, the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral is the tallest educational building in the Western hemisphere and the second tallest university building in the world. The Cathedral contains 26 Nationality Rooms used by the University of Pittsburgh. These rooms reflect the crafts, culture, and traditions of Pittsburgh's diverse ethnic groups. Of museum quality, often designed by architects abroad, the 26 rooms adapt Classical, Byzantine, Romanesque, Baroque, Renaissance, Tudor, Empire, Minka and folk styles to re-create cultural periods prior to 1787, the year the University was founded. Trained guides offer tours by prior reservation for groups of ten or more; narrated tape tours are available for walk-in visitors.