Science museums deal with the natural world; its collections may contain specimens of birds, mammals, insects, plants, rocks, minerals, and fossils. In addition, they are concerned with the development and application of ideas, scientific instrumentation, and research, such as space exploration. Science museums have their origin in the cabinets of curiosities built by prominent figures of Europe during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. With the development of the natural sciences in the 19th century, museums displaying objects from the natural world flourished and their number multiplied. Later, natural science museums responded to new trends in nature conservation and broader environmental issues.
Today, on International Museum Day, we bring you closer to some of the most important science, natural history and technology institutions in the world. Schedule your next trip to one of them!
London Natural History Museum
The building is an outstanding example of Victorian Romanesque architecture. It was previously an integral part of the British Museum. Under the supervision of Richard Owen, the natural history collections were moved to the current location, which was opened to the public in 1881.
It comprises almost 70 million specimens from all over the world. Among these are a large number of plants and animals whose species were first described and named. There are also very significant historical collections, such as those of James Cook resulting from his expeditions to the Pacific and those of Charles Darwin from his voyage on the HMS Beagle. The collections are organized into departments of botany, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology, and zoology.
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian is a research institution founded by the bequest of James Smithson, an English scientist. It was his will that his legacy become part of the United States government, and his funds should be used for the “increase and dissemination of knowledge among men.”
Conceptualized as a university during early discussions, the institution was ultimately a hybrid of a research center, an observatory, a library, and a museum.
The Smithsonian continued to expand and in the early 21st century its various constituent museums housed more than a million artifacts. The institution comprised more than 15 museums and several research centers. Among the most notable items in the possession of the institution are the huge blue Hope diamond and the Columbia command module from the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission.
The Smithsonian also maintains important natural history and ethnographic collections, including John Wesley Powell’s record of his research on Native Americans in Colorado, a diverse array of more than four million fossils, and the National Herbarium, which preserved four million and medium of plant specimens.
The institution also cared about pop culture, and retains the ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in the movie The Wizard of Oz (1939).
American Museum of Natural History
It was founded in New York City in 1869. It pioneered field expeditions and the creation of dioramas and other exhibits showing natural habitats and their plant and animal life.
The museum’s collections of research specimens number more than 30 million, and its fossil and insect collections are among the largest in the world, including impressive dinosaur and mammal fossils.
The museum conducts research in anthropology, astronomy, entomology, herpetology, ichthyology, invertebrates, mineralogy, ornithology, and paleontology. The museum includes a 485,000-volume library on natural history, as well as collections of photographs, films, and manuscripts.
British museum
The museum was founded in 1753 and was originally based on three collections: those of Sir Hans Sloane; Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford; and Sir Robert Cotton. Its famous round Reading Room was built in the 1850s; Under its copper dome worked such famous figures as Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf, Peter Kropotkin and Thomas Carlyle.
Among the most famous possessions of the British Museum are the Elgin Marbles, which consist mainly of architectural details from the Parthenon in Athens; other Greek sculptures from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the Rosetta Stone, which provided the key to reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs; the Black Obelisk and other Assyrian relics from the palace and temples of Calah (present-day Nimrūd) and Nineveh; exquisite work in gold, silver, and shells from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur; the so-called Portland Vase, a 1st century AD cameo glass vessel found near Rome; burial treasure from a 7th century AD ship found at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk; and Chinese pottery from the Ming and other dynasties.
National Museum of Natural History of Paris, or Jardin des Plantes
It is one of the most important botanical gardens in the world, located in Paris. It was founded in 1626 as a royal garden for medicinal plants and was first opened to the public in 1650. Under the supervision of G.-LL Buffon (1739-1788) the garden was greatly expanded and became a center for scientific study. associated with such prominent figures in early French botany and zoology as the Jussieu brothers, Georges Cuvier, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. In the early 19th century, it supported expeditions to many distant parts of the world, which led to the acquisition of large numbers of plants that were previously unknown to Western science.
Approximately 23,500 species of plants are grown in these greenhouses and in outdoor plots. The garden features cacti, grasses, bromeliads, orchids, ferns, aroids, Australian flora, alpine plants, irises, cannas, and conifers. The herbarium kept in the garden is one of the best in the world and consists of more than six million dried reference specimens. A botanical library, a small zoo, a labyrinth, and various natural history exhibits are also part of the garden-museum complex.
Teylers Museum in Harlem
Pieter Teyler van der Hulst (1702-1778) was a successful silk merchant. In your will,
Pieter Teyler wrote that his considerable fortune of two million guilders (approximately 80 million euros) should go to a foundation to promote theology, the sciences and the arts. In this way the first museum in Holland was born. And it is still there.
In its collection we can find wonderful pieces of art, books, instruments, coins, medals, fossils and minerals.
National Aviation and Space Museum
As part of the Smithsonian Institution, its two centers house 60,000 artifacts and receive more than eight million visitors a year. The National Air and Space Museum was founded in 1946 as the National Air Museum. The first major artifact added to the museum’s collection was the biplane used for the Wright brothers’ first successful flight in 1903. In 1966, the museum began collecting NASA items and its name was changed to the National Air Museum and the Space.
It displays many famous flight artifacts, including Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis, the Bell XS-1 that Chuck Yeager used to break the sound barrier for the first time, the Apollo 11 command module, and a moon rock sample. . It also has a public observatory and a planetarium.
Ontario Science Center
Founded in 1964, the center offers important collections in aeronautics, agriculture, anatomy, botany, mineralogy, textiles, and other areas. It also makes an aquarium, an arboretum, open-air exhibits and a theater available to the public.
Bristol Museum of Science and Industry
Opened in 1933 by founder-philanthropist Julius Rosenwald, the museum has important exhibits on mining, automobiles, telecommunications, aviation and aeronautics, space travel, agriculture, weather, and medicine. It also has a 280-square-meter model railway and a German U-505 WWII submarine. Many of the exhibits are interactive.
Burgos Museum of Human Evolution
The MEH is a museum and informative reference at a national and international level that not only raises the great issues that have to do with our ancestors, but also reflects on the present of our species Homo sapiens , endowed with capacities that allow us to modify the world.
It preserves important goods such as fossils of Homo Antecessor, relics from the excavation of ‘Gran Dolina’, the double-sided hand ax ‘Excalibur’, the reference to the oldest symbolic behavior found or a quartzite double-sided; the famous Homo heidelbergensis called ‘ Miguelón ‘, in honor of Miguel Induráin; or Beagle, a brig in which Charles Darwin traveled to the Galapagos Islands.
Among the associated centers, which enhance some of the functions of the MEH, are the University of Burgos and the Atapuerca Foundation . The latter manages the Sierra de Atapuerca, one of the most important deposits in the world.
