The Mind Museum is a world-class site in Taguig City that makes learning Science more fun! Its five galleries are filled with quality crafted illustrations that will bring your textbooks knowledge to life. The museum’s exhibits cover a wide variety of Science branches like physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology and more!
The idea of its construction was conceived by the Bonifacio Art Foundation, Inc. in January 2007. With the help of several individuals and corporations, their vision of having a state-of-the-art Science Museum in the Phillippines was made possible on March 16, 2012, when The Mind Museum opened. This fascinating museum is a great place not just for children but for everyone!
Exploring The Mind Museum
It was great to give it a visit before 9:00 AM because there was no queue yet. We can enjoy exploring the museum better since there were no other visitors yet. Upon checking the ticket price, we found out that it’s P650.00 for private school students and P340.00 only public school students. This made me quip that if I only found out sooner—I would have enrolled our son to a public school!
Our tour started with a short briefing from a lady riding a segway. It was funny to see that it was just our family getting briefed as if we’ve exclusively rented the entire museum. She was practically giving us some basics about the different sections of the museum along with the policies and guidelines to help maintain the facilities in good condition and prevent damages.
Earth Gallery: Nature Across the Breadth of Time
The moment our briefing was done, we can’t help but rush in to visit the T-Rex skeleton replica first. It’s an iconic museum exhibit that we see a lot in movies. I find it to be one of the most interesting because of its pre-historic origin and monstrous size. With just a pinch of imagination, you can bring it to life and picture out its glorious days. This collection of T-Rex bones is simply a masterpiece.
The next one that we checked is the animated globe. Its animation wonderfully illustrates the Pangea separation of countries. The animation of the hovering clouds as the Pangea separation takes place added beauty to the presentation. There’s another globe where you’ll get a better feel of the earth’s surface and see its major fault lines through the illuminated broken lines.
Another eye-catching piece in this section is the volcano which reminded me of our visit to the Mt. Hibok-Hibok Volcano Observatory. Instead of just drawings, you’ll see an animated effect that displays what exactly happens inside a volcano when it erupts and how the lava flows down slowly around the volcano.
Nature’s Hour Glass
Inside the Earth Gallery is a mini-theatre which shows a short 3D film called ANG SIMULA: The Natural History of the Philippines which was directed by Chito Roño. The movie starts with a boy running on the rocks then jumping in the water transforming into a 1950’s diver then the scene shifts to an astronaut. Modern Manila is then shown up until a schoolboy saw a giant turtle “pawikan” on the shore.
The next scenes show how the pawikan existed during the era of the dinosaurs. How it swam swiftly to survive the raging tectonic plates as the Pangea scattered to different continents. There were flashing scenes of falling icebergs, fighting dinosaurs, volcanic eruptions up to the point that a part of Malaysia separated to become the Palawan Island.
The animation of how the islands in the Philippines grouped together followed the scene. I’ll leave the rest for you to see during your visit here.
Universe Gallery: The Beginning and Majesty of the Cosmos
After our earth exploration, we headed straight up to the moon of the Universe Gallery. The walls and ceilings of this gallery are filled with stars to give you a better outer space feel. The moon is beautiful and romantic even in its up-close view in spite of all its blemishes. There are buttons where you can change its state to a new moon, first quarter, full moon, etc.
The spacesuit replica looked exactly like the original ones up to the smallest details. What I didn’t see is the proudly pinoy made moon buggy that was designed by Eduardo San Juan. The mini-rovers displayed were the ones used on Mars. The miniature solar system gives a great illustration of how the planets revolve around the sun with a push of the button.
Space Shell
The Space Shell is a small dome within the Universe Gallery that can be easily accessed by everyone. It has a unique setup where the entire ceiling is the video screen and everyone can simply lie down and relax as you watch. It has a short video about how the universe came to be starting from the Big Bang all the way to the earth that we have today.
Atom Gallery: The Strange World of the Very Small
After getting overwhelmed with the size of the outside world, we went straight down the tiny atomic world. The giant molecules and chocolate wonderfully decorate the gallery to make you feel very small. Everyone was later gathered to watch the fascinating effects of light illumination and chemical reactions. I like the part where mixed ingredients change their colors and the baking soda with vinegar bursting reaction.
Our son had a fun time in the luminous room. It reminded me of how I used to play with my shadows during the several power outages of the ’90s. This room clearly takes it to the next level by letting your shadows stick longer to the walls. You can make your wackiest post while the light is still on then look behind how odd it looks like as the light is turned off.
Van de Graaff Generator
The Van de Graaff Generator perhaps is the most thrilling exhibit in the Atom Gallery. It’s so thrilling that all of the hairs in your body will rise up. It’s amazing how significant the kind of effect it does without giving you an electric shock. The metal ball places a static charge that makes the hair follicles repel each other that causes them to stand up.
More Fun Exhibits in The Mind Museum
A beehive-looking section seemed like a Lego playground but it actually lets you form different chemical elements. I wish we had this kind of toy during our chemistry class in high-school because it would have been more fun. I’m hoping that they can sell a commercial version of this in the future that schools can use.
The pendulum makes a great illustration of how the atomic particles react given an amount of force when they collide. You can pull 1, 2 or 3 of the balls from each end or on one end only to see the varying swings they can do. Close to it is the Electric Table where the person on each end can push a button that triggers a magnetic force that pushes the ring.
Life Gallery: The Exuberant Varieties of Life
This gallery features how life was formed from tiny cells up to what they are now today. We’ll see giant DNA, a cell, a brain and different forms of life that have diversified over millions of years. The quality of the props is unquestionably well-made up to the tiniest details. The parts of the giant cell and brains were properly labeled and everyone can learn more about the parts in detail using the touch screen monitors below them.
The evolution of man and other species have a large display as well. The theory that land creatures started from sea creatures to amphibians then reptiles of different sizes emerged over millions of years are well illustrated here with their animal manikins. They placed a great emphasis on human evolution with their life-like manikins as envisioned by Charles Darwin.
The fossils related to human evolution were given simple nicknames on top of their scientific names. It started with Lucy, which was followed by Australopithecus Afarensis, handyman, Turkana Boy, Neanderthal, The Hobbit up to the modern human. The illustration of the mother who just gave birth looked dramatic.
Technology Gallery: The Showcase of Human Ingenuity
The Technology Gallery can be found on the second floor of the Mind Museum. By the name itself, we’ll see here a collection of inventions the helped innovate farming, transportation, communication, mining and more. The timeline of the inventions displayed here dates back long before the medieval times up to the modern era.
I guess the toilet is the oldest invention displayed here because its earliest version was found in India in 2800 BC. The second oldest one perhaps is the seed drill which was used by the Babylonians around 1400 BCE. The invention of the printing press 1439 greatly innovated mass communication and the spread of knowledge because more books were produced.
From the simple and basic inventions came the more modern ones. The innovation became so rapid later on that we’re now seeing technologies that seemed impossible before. The technological wonders that mankind can produce are simply fascinating.
The Mind Museum Rates
Ticket Prices:
Adults – P775.00
Children and Private School Students (up to college) – P650.00
Public School Students (up to college) – P340.00
Teachers – P340.00
Operating Hours:
TUESDAYS-SUNDAYS
Open from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Activity Schedule:
9:00 AM – 10:30 AM
10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM
1:30 PM – 3:00 PM
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
4:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Address:
JY Campos Park, 3rd Avenue
Bonifacio Global City
Taguig City, Philippines 1634
Email: inquiry@themindmuseum.org
Phone: +632 909-6463
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