When Santa Rosa Junior College throws an open house party, it goes all-out.

 
The annual Day Under the Oaks celebration stretched across the Santa Rosa campus as student organizations, clubs and academic departments set up booths and opened their doors to welcome the Sonoma County community.

 
From the half-dozen bouncy houses on the front lawn to the hands-on human brains in the biology department, there was no shortage of entertaining and informative displays spread throughout the campus May 4.

 
Native Americans performed traditional dances and sold handmade crafts. The police department served up cotton candy.  The sustainability department gave away a bicycle. The agricultural department hosted a petting zoo with rambunctious baby goats and a donkey named Bruno. The horticulture department held their annual plant sale. Special telescopes were set up outside the planetarium for explorers of all ages to safely take a look at the sun.

 
The campus was packed with thousands of people throughout the day.

 
Biology professor Nick Anast drew oohs and ahhs and a few squeamish gasps with his hands-on demonstration of healthy and diseased hearts, brains and lungs. Children poured into his lab all afternoon to throw on a pair of rubber gloves and hold a real human brain. The children who saw the deflated, blackened and emphysema-riddled lung right next to a spongy healthy one are not likely to ever take up the habit of smoking cigarettes.

 
From Mentos-and-soda explosions to ice cream made with liquid nitrogen, the chemistry department did not fail to impress the future scientists who came to the event.

 
The Petaluma campus was even represented by a “virtual” Petaluma on the lawn of the campus. Nearly every department had a display or sponsored a booth at this year’s DUTO.

 
No one seemed to notice the absence of a few old oaks that lost their lives this year due to old age and a root disease. There was enthusiasm and exuberance around every turn.

 
On the one day of the year the college rolls out the red carpet and invites the world in, the college shined. Day Under The Oaks is a fun and educational tradition that all can participate in and look forward to year after year.