Home
» City specials
» Hangzhou
Museums offer fun way of learning
By Xu Wenwen |
August 4, 2009, Tuesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE Zhejiang Museum of Natural History and the Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum use interactive displays to keep visitors interested in learning about the world past and present. Xu Wenwen takes a sneak preview with this tour. Good news for science and natural buffs, both the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History and Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum are open to the public at the newly opened West Lake Culture Square.
The West Lake Culture Square's construction area is 350,000 square meters. The square cost more than 2 billion yuan (US$293 million) and took eight years to complete. It hosts not only museums but also a cinema, an opera troupe, a painting academy and publishing houses.
Zhejiang Museum of Natural History
Open hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 9am-5pm
Admission: Free
Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum
Open: Tuesday-Sunday, 9am-5pm. (Ticket sales won't be available after 3:45pm)
Admission: 30 yuan for adults, 20 yuan for children, 20 yuan for each person in a group of more than 20 people (need to book one day in advance)
How to get there: Take Buses 502/K76/K156 to Hangzhou Tower or Zhongshan Road N., walk northward to the X-building (the main building of the square). Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum
The new Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum opened to the public last Wednesday and features advanced facilities like 4D immersion cinema.
The museum covers 30,000 square meters and includes 10 exhibition areas with more than 100 exhibition items and over 300 exhibition articles. The greatest feature of the museum is that nearly every item includes an interactive program that can explain science and technology leisurely.
In the sports area, visitors can test their physical ability or nervous system response in soccer, basketball, jumping, running and balance beam activities.
In the music area, a guitar and harp without strings, a drum set without drumheads and a huge piano keyboard on the floor are digital instruments that everyone can use to produce sweet music.
In the Universe Hall, simulators like an ocean exploration device, typhoon device, moon landing rocket devices and a Shenzhou-V simulator give visitors a chance to walk on the "ocean floor" or in "space."
The Traditional Chinese Medicine Hall is the first TCM exhibit in a technology museum in the country. It combines modern technology and traditional medical skills to allow visitors to examine their current health.
Follow the lead of museum staff for a tongue test. After a photo is taken of your tongue, you can compare it to others while a computer will analyze your health and tell you how to improve your health.
Staff will also help you take your pulse. A pulse waveform will be provided by a computer system that analyzes the data and tells you about your condition. It will also tell you what you need to do to improve it.
Furthermore, a display of acupuncture points of the human body with a computer introduction helps you understand the meridian theory doctrine (jingmai) while a medicine chest wall contains various classical Chinese medicines and herbs.
"The TCM idea was generated during a brainstorming session before construction of the museum started," says Shi Jia, an official of the museum. "Zhejiang Chinese Medical University bid for the program and its experts took charge of designing the hall. They also provided the medical materials and tongue models." Zhejiang Museum of Natural History
Zhejiang Museum of Natural History covers 26,000 square meters and boasts a collection of nearly 130,000 specimens.
Housing specimens of animals and plants, as well as amphibians, the museum records how the planet has evolved. Visitors will find the interactive and high-tech features enlightening and informative in a way that explains the secrets of nature in a way everyone can understand.
In the first-floor hall, the journey starts with a display of ancient species including skeletons of a rhincoden typus (whale shark) and an eschrichtius robustus (gray whale). There's also an alligator sinensis (Chinese alligator) and a chelonia mydas (green turtle).
Next up is the dinosaurs. Bone specimens from dinosaurs show the next stage in evolution. The longest dinosaur specimen, a mamenchisaurus hochuanensis, is 22 meters long. It took the reporter 15 seconds to walk from head to tail. The angustimripterus longicephatus is suspended from the ceiling, underneath is a zigongosaurus fuxiensis, which weighed a massive 15 tons when it walked the Earth.
Among the collection, some fossils are precious and valuable like the pterosaur. It is one of the few complete specimens of its kind found in China. In addition, there are large numbers of grade-one and grade-two specimens of plants and animals under state protection. Many specimens now extinct were collected when the museum was first set up.
The dinosaur hall features huge bones and rare fossils while the hall called "Life Story of the Earth" offers many fun games as well as recreated landforms like a rainforest, volcano and wetland.
In front of a simulated wetland ecosystem, visitors are attracted to three devices that allow you to see the wetland through the eyes of different species. One shows the upside down world through fish eyes, another a wide and clear view - but in black and white - through eagle eyes and lastly the eyes of a dragonfly reveal not one wetland, but hundreds.
The museum also includes a mineral exhibition aisle.
The West Lake Culture Square's construction area is 350,000 square meters. The square cost more than 2 billion yuan (US$293 million) and took eight years to complete. It hosts not only museums but also a cinema, an opera troupe, a painting academy and publishing houses.
Zhejiang Museum of Natural History
Open hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 9am-5pm
Admission: Free
Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum
Open: Tuesday-Sunday, 9am-5pm. (Ticket sales won't be available after 3:45pm)
Admission: 30 yuan for adults, 20 yuan for children, 20 yuan for each person in a group of more than 20 people (need to book one day in advance)
How to get there: Take Buses 502/K76/K156 to Hangzhou Tower or Zhongshan Road N., walk northward to the X-building (the main building of the square). Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum
The new Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum opened to the public last Wednesday and features advanced facilities like 4D immersion cinema.
The museum covers 30,000 square meters and includes 10 exhibition areas with more than 100 exhibition items and over 300 exhibition articles. The greatest feature of the museum is that nearly every item includes an interactive program that can explain science and technology leisurely.
In the sports area, visitors can test their physical ability or nervous system response in soccer, basketball, jumping, running and balance beam activities.
In the music area, a guitar and harp without strings, a drum set without drumheads and a huge piano keyboard on the floor are digital instruments that everyone can use to produce sweet music.
In the Universe Hall, simulators like an ocean exploration device, typhoon device, moon landing rocket devices and a Shenzhou-V simulator give visitors a chance to walk on the "ocean floor" or in "space."
The Traditional Chinese Medicine Hall is the first TCM exhibit in a technology museum in the country. It combines modern technology and traditional medical skills to allow visitors to examine their current health.
Follow the lead of museum staff for a tongue test. After a photo is taken of your tongue, you can compare it to others while a computer will analyze your health and tell you how to improve your health.
Staff will also help you take your pulse. A pulse waveform will be provided by a computer system that analyzes the data and tells you about your condition. It will also tell you what you need to do to improve it.
Furthermore, a display of acupuncture points of the human body with a computer introduction helps you understand the meridian theory doctrine (jingmai) while a medicine chest wall contains various classical Chinese medicines and herbs.
"The TCM idea was generated during a brainstorming session before construction of the museum started," says Shi Jia, an official of the museum. "Zhejiang Chinese Medical University bid for the program and its experts took charge of designing the hall. They also provided the medical materials and tongue models." Zhejiang Museum of Natural History
Zhejiang Museum of Natural History covers 26,000 square meters and boasts a collection of nearly 130,000 specimens.
Housing specimens of animals and plants, as well as amphibians, the museum records how the planet has evolved. Visitors will find the interactive and high-tech features enlightening and informative in a way that explains the secrets of nature in a way everyone can understand.
In the first-floor hall, the journey starts with a display of ancient species including skeletons of a rhincoden typus (whale shark) and an eschrichtius robustus (gray whale). There's also an alligator sinensis (Chinese alligator) and a chelonia mydas (green turtle).
Next up is the dinosaurs. Bone specimens from dinosaurs show the next stage in evolution. The longest dinosaur specimen, a mamenchisaurus hochuanensis, is 22 meters long. It took the reporter 15 seconds to walk from head to tail. The angustimripterus longicephatus is suspended from the ceiling, underneath is a zigongosaurus fuxiensis, which weighed a massive 15 tons when it walked the Earth.
Among the collection, some fossils are precious and valuable like the pterosaur. It is one of the few complete specimens of its kind found in China. In addition, there are large numbers of grade-one and grade-two specimens of plants and animals under state protection. Many specimens now extinct were collected when the museum was first set up.
The dinosaur hall features huge bones and rare fossils while the hall called "Life Story of the Earth" offers many fun games as well as recreated landforms like a rainforest, volcano and wetland.
In front of a simulated wetland ecosystem, visitors are attracted to three devices that allow you to see the wetland through the eyes of different species. One shows the upside down world through fish eyes, another a wide and clear view - but in black and white - through eagle eyes and lastly the eyes of a dragonfly reveal not one wetland, but hundreds.
The museum also includes a mineral exhibition aisle.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
