HI Johnnyboy
I came with my husband for his birthday, to see the Cocoon. The technology was amazing and we got the hang of it by about the field trip part. I personally liked the small animations in the book about specimens right near the beginning. Plants growing and butterflies flying about, great. This is my first visit to this site to try and look at the stuff I saved.
I'm a mum and like the other mum's my kids loved all the computer stuff. I just felt fustarted because they do "computers" at home anyway and the whole point of going to a museum is to be more 'hands on' in a "real" way.
My favourites were the boxes with the actual insects and plants in. They made me actually look at the insects and see the differences between them. Fasinating! The following day we went to Down House in Kent to see Darwin"s house and the kids went for an actual bug hunt in the gardens. Call me old fashion but I loved it and so did the kids.
Beautiful structure!
poppet's mum
Hi Melissa,
I'm sorry to hear that you can't see the content you saved on your card during your visit to the Cocoon. To help make sure you can access the content you chose we have now allocated all of the collectables to your card. You will be able to find them when you go to your MyNaturePlus homepage. I hope you enjoy the content and if you have any further problems please email us at natureplus@nhm.ac.uk and we'll see what we can do to help.
I made a point of going after the original rush had died down a little and during a school week but both precautions made no difference at all, still very busy. I think the controls on the flow rate through are a very good idea and should be kept up as too many people leaning over to see what is happening at the tables stop them working or cause problems.
With regard to the content, I was very impressed. Teaching people about the importance of a collection of any scientific discipline is fantastic, it makes the whole point of museums clear. The moor information recorded at time of collection of a specimen or during later study all adds to our knowledge about the subject matter. It's like "CSI Earth" and we all love the story of how the detectives get their results.
I think the Cacoon is a great idea from an educational point of view. I do hope it does not make access to any of the archived material any harder for anybody studying. I have noticed that this is a trend with less staff to run such area as libraries etc (I believe this is a general trend accross many museums).
I hope the Cocoon inspires a whole new generation of Attenboroughs, Leakeys, Fosseys or even Darwins.
i thought that the shape of the cocoon was amazing! it was so big and different. it was a unique design, and it relates to the centre. i found that the new tecnology was very interesting and i loved the touch screens. the way that the information was displayed was very interesting and clear, and they had a great range of the species. i think that there could have been some more animals but i found it very interesting.