The Tunnel of Science is a new concept: a traveling museum that brings the very latest in science and technology to countries around the world, and is constantly updated as new discoveries and advances are added to the displays. The tunnel museum will be in Costa Rica until Dec. 10 and is open to the public, free, from Wednesdays to Sundays, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m, at the Villa Olímpica in Desamparados.
This unusual museum is a gift of the Max Planck Insitutes in Germany, dedicated to the various sciences and their connectedness. In Costa Rica it is sponsored by the National Council of Public Universities (CONARE); Costa Rican university students who are studying science, technology and medicine take visitors around to explain and show.
This museum is an experience especially designed for today’s students, to teach and encourage them in careers for a changing world and for the public to understand new developments. Printed explanations are in English and Spanish.
Take a look at the Tunnel in this video from CONARE:
Visitors move through eight modules starting with the Cosmos, the universe, planets and black holes. The “Material” module explains how cells and molecules create existence. “Life” explores climate change, ecosystems and how they relate to each other. “Complexity” shows how all sciences are related and how this applies to our lives.
Module five is about the brain, its functions, what happens to our brains when we are active or asleep, and how disease can affect the brain, while module six explores how science examines the most basic human element, the genome, to see how it functions and how it reacts to illness or congenital defects that can be prevented or cured.
Module seven is on energy and the search for new forms and how to expand existing ones to provide for the environment, how clouds affect plant life and how oceans change their functions as we look to new sources of energy and food production. Society is the topic of module eight, how to use new developments and new concepts to create living areas that take in human diversity as migration and globalization form new types of societies.
To cap off the exhibit, a maze shows advances in studies at the public universities in Costa Rica.
The museum is located in the Villa Olímpica in the Dos Cercas area of Desamparados. Buses to Desamparados are on Av. 6 behind the Caja building in downtown San José. For more information visit the CONARE website.
