Looking for the dunes in Brussels

KBIN: Wednesday 12/12/07

The museum is known as a museum of natural sciences.

If you can meet with three people, then it's good to pass on beautiful things. Because a large museum deserves a worthy report ...

Like an early bird ...:

6 pm: Departure by car from Leuven + Car park found at Brussels Central Station

9.15 hours: pick up Hans and Pascal + departure to KBIN, also known as the Museum of Natural Sciences and even more easily in the popular "The Museum of Dino".

Children would envy us this day.

We were welcomed by Wim De Vos , a well-prepared, wise pajotten lander, head of communication, which led us to the website and the concept of the museum. Of course we all knew something about the museum, but it was very interesting and instructive to get to know the history and current operation.

Wim then asked us a lot of focused, meaningful questions. KC is still unprecedented in many educational circles. And yet we are with more than 30,000 members. It was careful for both. Not that we had to score or to be responsible for it.

Unknown, unfortunately, is still untouched.

Immediately some recurring points (copyrights, etc.) could be interpreted in a calm way by Hans.

Pascal tried to keep an eye on the contents we heard in a short period of time.

Wim is clearly a busy interviewer who has swam through many waters. And that is already one of the similarities with the undersigned and many other KC forces. Spit the tongue and especially with a lot of love for the work and the subject.

We like that.

Jiska Verbouw (Department of Communication), which mainly deals with content / content of the website and apparently the brain behind other creative elements, clarified us.

She told us about the children's subsite: 4kids dinoweb . An interactive site where children can collect their hearts through the dinosaur - dinoplanet - quiz - contest - games - craft.

In the section 'Public Works' there are a lot of educational documents and archives to be found.

Via 'Expeditions' you will see some videos.

After that we could have a drink and especially talk with Hugo Vandendries , responsible for education. A pleasant storyteller with a good background knowledge.

KlasCement listened carefully and is open as it has been for 10 years and apparently the 30,000 other members also know.

And then came the magic moment: a tour of Hugo himself! It was a real discovery for me as the past week between the big glass of wooded iguanodon spaces. The only real skeletons were. Along the illuminated dome, where you can see the European Parliament, we stepped back in time. A few "birds" on the ceiling drew our attention and slowly discovered the beautiful giants for us. Bernissart iguanodons blink behind transparent walls. Clearer than ever, eye-to-eye with the heads. You could almost touch them. So pure is the glass that separates our time and millions of years apart. With a sober, but very ingenious lighting system, you can admire these 'old shakers'.

We saw the skeletons from above, from the side and from the basement, where many people were at work. A unique spectacle. This transparent structure says more about the current openness that this museum has known since its existence. It also radiates a kind of philosophy. And say that before this building was a true zoo and plant garden (Dixit Hugo). Nice!

We saw the 3D relief scenes about life in and around the coal mines. After all, a lot of skeletons were found.

We heard some audio texts and could see a unique video image. The famous painting where a professor is at work was transformed into a film with a living professor (through a blue key system).

Here and there we also saw other video images and explanations throughout the exhibition. A lot of animation techniques were used to make this world alive.

The KBIN is perhaps the most important knowledge center for Europe! The place to be. Expeditions are also prepared and managed.

On the paleo-trip site you can watch a video. Finally video content online.

Hugo's animation radiated on us through the skeletons. That such a person apparently still collaborated with Professor De Meuter can not be a coincidence. Driven, as if it were about his own garden, Hugo led us around. And that he knows more about his soil, his growths, his fossils, his rocks and his animals.

Open-garden-day.

He proudly presented us with the new paleolab. And that should be possible. Children, but also (large) parents, can, if a small contribution itself, explore and try a lot. Almost all senses are stimulated as it were. A certain logic was put in this lab-lab: initially you have the "field-exploring" assignments, afterwards you have the "lab research" and finally you reconstruct the "publication or the skeleton into a whole." Part of the whole. That way, I also felt like it sometimes.

A splendid, didactically soundly developed experimental field where children, but certainly adults, can blow their detectives.

The children can do search games, browse books, print with plasticine, study drawings of fossil prints and poot castings, watch a DVD, perform a variety of research work on the computer.

In this palaeolab with 3 islands, the activity of cooperation is also encouraged ... and that really stimulates a real KC. Children can blow off the sand with the help of foot pumps and other systems to make a skeleton appear in the demonstration box.

A magnetic wall offers the ability to properly build all kinds of puzzle pieces (of a mammoth) into a whole.

There are differentiated assignments, different in difficulty. A supervisor explicitly asks for the material to jump properly and put everything back to where you initially found it. That attitude also fits into a museum, we can only be happy about it. And yet, children / young people, and thus adults with a fair childhood, can enjoy the activities throughout the museum at targeted places.

So, in this interactive, educational corner space you can really enjoy yourself and get value for money!

It's nice that children get a "reward" when playing construction games. If you have made an effort, you get a result and an encouragement. We also know that on KC, huh!

Perhaps we'll see more of such do-places in other museums.

The nursery room with a 'mint tent' also offers an exciting experience-oriented search for history.

Somewhere we opened loops where there were several types of teeth or a denture. To make everything visible, there was also a utility: a razor as a recognition of the type of denture.

The Mayan dino again shows that dinos also had eggs and nests.

I even waited for the African Museum of Tervuren. An elephant elephant (from 1905) laughed at the top of the original staircase (where there was a turn of DNA structure), which will soon lead us to the "history of science" room. This elephant would have died in this area for this building. Those who listen carefully to Hugo experience that history lives not only in the animals, but also in the solid mass of buildings and constructions. Heritage to cherish!

Here the museum animals are not seen as static bones. They are studied as living animals: animals that ate and had their daily activities.

Ever again, the bright glance and the beautiful lighting of the glass walls where blinking, brown featherers (because they are), as stately security guards, are constantly chasing you. The one time cute looking, another time guilty curious, inspiring, fascinating, suddenly tight and tight. Any personification is not counted here ...

Here and there, a floor tile in the cages is transparent so that you can also see the lower floor.

Children can also make drawings made by Jiska on the website. Perhaps there will ever be an overview exhibition ... Children can also have workshops in the museum.

That this museum has a revival, after years of rebuilding, may be clear. The robot structures of the past have been given other destinations: the museumologists, designers and scientists have formed a close group, which brings this museum another power.

The site itself is already worth exploring: lesson packages, pictures, some movies, ...

And to think that the ict era has to start ... we sometimes think of KC: audio and video will appear even more and better on the net. Share materials with people who can not or can not easily move because of their disability or illness.

And so, KBIN already has wonderful initiatives for the hearing impaired and wheelchair patients. Also elderly people can get a tour in a customized way. Spoken about diversity and inclusion!

And as promised: the birds ...

What do birds have to do with these dinosaurs?

Dino's had plumes! It stands now like a pole above water. Therefore, in this museum you will see birds at the skeletons in different places. Sometimes they refer to the name of the bird. Any other similarity "beyond the plumes than" is no further. But it keeps the viewer stationary. It turns on thinking. It makes us think of the theory of evolution. It keeps a watching audience silent and thinking.

The large canopy was handcrafted in the timeline. The images of surreal prehistoric animals were placed opposite the real castings.

The following anecdote also added: Spielberg had a very big Veloseraptor designed for the Jurassic Park movie, but later this dino was found to be so big in reality. How movie history can have a predictive character. Just ask the oracles. Maybe an invitation for another visit to some Greek-Roman museum ...

And then we do not have the other spaces you can visit in the museum ... Maybe another time ... Or have you been there? Tell us about KC!

In short:

We are very glad that so much education moves in this museum. Now puzzling further, or in the longer term, you can also think about ICT. How the user / visitor (remote) can also be enabled interactively to collaborate on the philosophy of web2.0, allowing them to interact with them.

And then you always come across money and staff: we've experienced that feeling on KC.

At the opening of the new spaces, this museum received thousands of visitors. Chapeau!

Thank you for the welcome and the tour.

All there with class, weekend with family or vacation!

Your early bird , Steven Duyver.