Biggest PH science museum opens
It’s like “Disneyland,” but for science geeks.
MindSpark, considered the biggest science museum in the country, recently opened its doors to students out for some off-campus discoveries and adults with fond memories of frog dissections and other classroom experiments.
A 9,000-square-meter facility located inside Ayala Malls Manila Bay in Parañaque City, the museum features more than 100 interactive exhibits and 30 themed rooms, filled with trivia and activities covering a wide range of scientific pursuits: physics, geology, biology, anatomy, chemistry, electronics, and engineering, among others.
Three months in the making, the museum was developed by the Philippine Amusement and Entertainment Corp. (Paec) and was formally opened on Tuesday, with Education Secretary Sonny Angara as main guest.
“These kinds of museums would give our youth the direction to change and another way to innovate not just inside our schools, but also within the community,” Angara said in a speech.
Sharon proven wrong
A media tour given two days after the opening had guides donning white coats for that “laboratory” feel. The three-hour walk-through was a mix of space treks, adventures with pulleys and pendulums, close encounters with waves and electrons, a deep dive into the insect world, a “maze balls” challenge, etc.
And of course, there was the inevitable Pinoy wisecrack along the way.
“The lava lamp is the proof that Sharon Cuneta’s song ‘Tubig at Langis’ is wrong—oil and water can actually be mixed together,” said one of the guides.
Animal specimens came in the flesh (and bone). The geology room contained a trove of real gemstones.
An expected instant hit among students is the robotics section, which included a replica of Optimus, a creation of the Elon Musk company Tesla.
The latter parts of the tour take visitors through a hospital “ER” and a fire safety demo session where they can learn basic first-aid techniques. And moving away from the fire, the penultimate is all about water.
The tour concludes with an inward journey—into the human heart, lungs, and intestine.
‘Learning made fun’
“We did a lot of research on how all branches of science can be showcased in an interactive way within one museum, because we believe that learning made fun becomes learning made easy,” Paec vice president Yzl Cruz said in an interview.
Paec’s other education-related projects include the Museum of Emotions in Cebu City, the Food Wanderer x Lakbay Museo and the Craft Academy also in Paranaque, and the Omniverse Museum in Makati City.
“Our heart has always been with our country and we’re very nationalistic and that’s our inspiration behind the development of our museums,” Cruz said.
“We want to pay back to the country … by providing and showcasing to our fellow Filipinos the magic behind science, and even that of heritage, culture, art, food through our other museums.”
