Photo: Eva Cabrera.
In children’s stories, forests are dark, dangerous places, from which children should stay away, but the Forest of the city of La Plata has a Museum and a Planetarium that invite boys and girls during these winter holidays to get closer and be able to be paleontologists looking for fossils, trackers/watchers of Argentine birds and scientists who make rain gauges, create volcanoes and undertake a space mission to save the Earth.
Photo: Eva Cabrera.
Among the hundred-year-old trees that rise in this 60-hectare forest of La Plata, the boys and girls come across the Museum of Natural Sciences, a two-story neoclassical-style building, dating from the late 19th century, whose entrance is flanked by two resting giant cats that will be familiar to the little ones. It’s about Diego, the tiger from the movie Ice Age, a smilodon or saber-tooth tiger, Manny’s mammoth mate, and Sid the giant sloth, who fight to return a baby to their tribe.
* 100006* Photo: Eva Cabrera.
After taking a photo with Diego the tiger, the little ones will enter a central hall and there they will be able to visit the 20 rooms of the Museum with their families, which has a collection of more than 4 million pieces and specimens, or join some of the three activities planned for the enjoyment of children from July 15 to 30, from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., totally free with the purchase of the museum ticket, whose value is 600 pesos if you Take out online and in 800 if you take out at the ticket office, free admission for boys and girls under 13, retirees and students of national universities.
Guided tours are at 12, 14 and 16. The 14 o’clock visits are designed for the general public, which are mostly families. We visit the Paleontology Room, some of the current animal rooms, both invertebrates and aquatic vertebrates; and on the upper floor the Egypt Room, which is the most requested and houses a very important collection. It is a tour that lasts an hour and a half, explained to Télam María Soledad Scazzola, coordinator of cuías of the La Plata museum.
Photo: Eva Cabrera.
One of the activities proposed for children by the Museum is Animals from the past and here the little visitors can be paleontologists for a day as they will learn about fossils and see various specimens.
*100014 * They will be told about the different types of fossils, the characteristics of reptiles and mammals. You will be able to see the Diplodocus, that long-necked dinosaur; see original femurs of the Antarctosaurus that lived about 60-80 million years ago, in addition to other fossils, the coordinator enthusiastically detailed.
Photo: Eva Cabrera.
He specified that they will be able to learn about the fossils of plants and mammals such as the saber-tooth tiger, see glyptodonts that are related to armadillos and part of the megafauna that lived with people
Another proposal is called Feathers, legs and beaks… birds from here and there and invites you to become a specialist in Argentine birds and learn to identify them, by observing their beaks and legs, recording them in a notebook that you will receive when you participate in this initiative.
Photo: Eva Cabrera.
In this activity they will tour the taxidermy rooms observing current birds, they will learn about their plumage, their legs and beaks. In the interactive classroom we will have other resources available to complement, such as listening to the song of some of the birds, in addition to recording what they observed in a field notebook, he specified.
He explained that the objective is to bring them closer to empathizing with Argentine birds or promote their curiosity and observation about the birds of our country. This is a recommended activity for children and adolescents over 8 years of age and takes place every day at 4:00 p.m.
Photo: Eva Cabrera.
Finally, boys and girls over 8 years old and teenagers will be able to travel to the past and, within the framework of the activity called Choose your own adventure. Travelers in time, they will be able to opt for various tours in the Latin American Archeology Room.
During 90 minutes, visitors will learn about a people who lived many years ago in present-day Peru. It is about a town that lived on the coast, near the sea, we are going to know their art, their temples and the places where they practiced their rituals and celebrated important ceremonies.We are going to follow different clues and go through different parts of the Museum, looking for objects in different rooms, concludes Scazzola.
All the activities are free with the purchase of the museum ticket, whose value at the ticket office is 800 pesos , children under 13 years of age and retirees enter for free and it was clarified that cash is not accepted.
Photo: Eva Cabrera.
The agenda of the Planetarium: movies, workshops and the invitation to observe the sky with a telescope A little further on, in this same Forest with trees of different greens, the Planetarium and the Faculty of Astronomical and Geophysical Sciences of the University appear de La Plata, who planned various activities for children and adolescents that will allow them to be scientists for a day, watch interesting full dome movies at the Planetarium and tour the Museum of Astronomy and Geophysics of that house of studies and the Great Telescope Equatorial.
During the first week of winter vacation, between Tuesday 18 and Friday 21 July there will be interesting workshops that require registration at the link https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScb1FOnr72zEIMTCHwbwbHs7xgPg-FoAtGEJO1DmSvjwskRBA/viewform. Admission is free with a voucher optional contribution.
If they are little ones from 3 to 5 years old, they can participate in the Universe of Colors workshop, where they can discover the colors of the Earth, the planets of the Solar System and have fun decorating clouds.
* 100041* Photo: Eva Cabrera.
For children from 6 to 8 years old, the Rain workshop was organized in which they will learn the different forms of precipitation that exist and will be able to assemble a rain gauge using plastic bottles so that they can use it at home.
For that same age group (6 to 8 years), there will also be a Navigating the High Seas workshop, where they will teach how to navigate the high seas, using star maps and discovering the constellations.
Photo: Eva Cabrera.
Children from 6 to 11 years old will be able to create a volcano in the Volcanoes workshop, where they will learn what they are and why lava flows from inside them, they will be able to see a volcano eruption up close and participate in a competition about volcanoes.* 100048*
Boys and girls between the ages of 9 and 11 will be meteorologists for a day if they participate in the Weather Forecasting workshop or if they sign up for the Space Mission workshop, they will be able to participate in a very important mission to protect planet Earth .
Admission is free with an optional contribution voucher.
Photo: Eva Cabrera.
At the La Plata Planetarium, children will be able to see films like Belisario, the little great hero of the cosmos, on the full dome screen from Tuesday to Sunday; A walk through the sky, an immersive experience of the night sky, in which they will learn how or The invisible Universe, about the message that the light of the stars brings.
Also from Tuesday to Sunday you can visit the Observatory and Observe the sky through your telescope.
