Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Wellcome Wing
The darkened, ultra-violet
Wellcome Wing
beckons you on from Making the Modern
World. The
Antenna
displays, on the ground floor, change regularly in order to cover
contemporary science issues while they are topical.
Pattern Pod
, meanwhile, is for
under-8s, and is basically a lot of interactive hi-tech fun. Kids can experiment with
water ripples, footprints and the Penrose tessellation, and groove away in the
multicoloured human shadow box.
On Floor 1,
Who am I?
is a guaranteed winner, as it concentrates on humans
themselves.
You can morph yourself into the opposite sex, watch a sperm race and test
the gender of your brain.
Atmosphere
, on Floor 2, is a touch-screen exhibition
exploring the causes and effects of climate change, and the possibilities for reducing
carbon emissions. Floor 3 contains
In Future
, where you can play frivolous but fun
multi-player educational games, and vote on contemporary socio-scientific questions,
such as “Should you be able to choose the gender of your child?”
18
The basement
The basement houses two hands-on galleries perfect for children under 11. In the
misleadingly entitled
Garden
, 3- to 6-year-olds don waterproofs to experiment with
lock gates, and hard hats to play with pulleys. The imaginatively entitled
Things
is
aimed at the natural curiosity of 7- to 11-year-olds about unidentifiable objects. A
longer attention span and a fair bit of reading are involved, and there are the usual
problems with crowds at the weekend and with the durability of the exhibits.
Floor 1
he
Challenge of Materials
, ranged around the balcony on the first floor, is an
extremely stylish exhibition - the glass-floored suspension bridge is particularly cool -
covering the use of materials ranging from aluminium to zerodur (used for making
laser gyroscopes). As well as the excellent hands-on displays, there are aesthetically
pleasing exhibits as diverse as a Bakelite co
n and an Axminster-carpet morning gown
designed by Vivienne Westwood.
Further on, you'll find a very old-fashioned, little-visited section on
Agriculture
,
perfect for those with a penchant for ploughs and tractors. Beyond lies
Cosmos &
Culture
, which explores our relationship with the universe through astronomy, and
features objects from the 7ft telescope used by William Herschel to discover Uranus in
1781, to DRIFT I, with which scientists attempted (and failed) to detect the invisible
“dark matter” that's thought to make up around a quarter of the universe.
Floor 2
The most popular section on Floor 2 is
Energy
, with its “do not touch” electric-shock
machine that absolutely fascinates kids. Much of it is thought-provoking stuff - you
can play computer games to learn how to reduce your carbon emissions - and the rest
comprises more conventional displays, everything from a bird oil lamp to a clay stove
from contemporary Kenya.
Elsewhere on Floor 2, there are sections on
Computing
and
Mathematics
now
renamed “histories”, as they were designed some years ago. Taking up quite some space
are Charles Babbage's gargantuan Difference Engine 1, the world's first computer built
in 1832, and his unrealized second version, which the museum completed in 1991.
Floor 3
Floor 3 is now mobbed by kids having enormous fun at the
Launchpad
, the museum's
chief interactive gallery where they can experiment with water, waves, light and sound
and build a catenary arch (and knock it down again); “explainers” are on hand to try
and impart some educational input.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT
SCIENCE MUSEUM
P.257
; V&A
P.249
; NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR
P.260
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