A grand exhibition was held to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Sri Jayawardenapura University. It was first established in 1959. The exhibition was open to the public from February 19 – 23.

We entered the university premises through a structure of a lion's paw as in Sigiriya. First we saw a structure of a stone cave and inside that was a pre-historic man and woman imitated by two university students. Then we saw a traditional village with daub wattled and thatched houses, tree houses with a ladder to climb, paddy fields, a tank with a sluice gate, a dagoba and vee-bissa or the paddy storing house. They were made by the university students.

In a thatched house there were old furniture and equipment such as a chunam box, betel stool, betel spitoon and arecanut slicer. Then we went to the Geography section. There were charts and pictures of the weather. There were different types of samples of soil, minerals and gemstones. There was a mini cross section of a graphite mine too.

Next we went to the Botany section. There were endemic plants on display. There was a herbal
medicine spa. I saw tiny parts of plants through microscopes. They were amazing. There was also an English Essay competition and I took part in it. In the Physics section we saw a structure of a large pyramid. When we went closer to the pyramid we saw Egyptian symbols and Mayan symbols of Mathematics that were used to make pyramids correctly.

There was a Biology section in which we saw some big aquaria with lots of marine and fresh water fish. There were specimens of sharks, endemic fish and snakes. We must appreciate the great work and talents of the university students of the campus. It was very interesting and gave us a good knowledge.