On an Academic Pilgrimage

Museums are often the best library for mustering knowledge, information and wisdom. No book can educate as much as museums enrich, deepen and saturate our hearts and soul. More than a place that houses a bravura collection of rare and endangered artefacts that are of historical, scientific, cultural and artistic interest and significance, it manifests itself as a missing link of the dead past to the living present and even stretches to an extent of an unborn future.

The National Science Museum (NSM) of Thailand is nothing dissimilar.

3 large cubes design of science museum

Got a chance to hold my great great great parents head

The skeleton of a dinosaur

"Survival was hard", they said.

Developed in 1992 to commemorate the 60^th birth anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit, the NSM located at Techpolis in Pathumthani Province was a mirror of scientific fascination (at least to me). Ranging from exterior breathtaking and spectacular architecture to the interior scientific artefacts, it made me see the past, feel the present and think about the future.

As a science teacher, planning for a pilgrimage to such learning institutions should be more than a necessity. Because our students idolize teachers as immediate Google, having a rich experience of knowledge through such lasting impressions would be an additional advantage. So, I personally like to thank Dr Namkang Sriwattanarothai, our program director for making this visit a reality and possibility.

As shared with her in our casual conversation, I am on a mission to replicate a few of those simulated models and adopt interesting scientific experiments. Should things come the way I have planned, my school will witness a little science museum or a virtual laboratory that can simulate abstract scientific concepts in a simpler way, the much sought-after teaching strategy in this 21st-century teaching-learning process. 

“Real museums are places where time is transformed into space”- Orhan Pamuk