According to Charles Darwin “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” One best way to be adaptable to change is learning all the amazing things that have marked the scientific evolution. You can learn about these things in some books, researches. However, what is better than a museum to see with his own eyes the evidences of all these evolutions?

The Tellus Museum, situated in Georgia, is engaged to educate, and inspire visitors to make scientific connections through dynamic exhibits and enriching experiences. It is a Smithsonian Institution-affiliate natural history and science museum. Tellus was founded as the Weinman Mineral Museum in 1983, which closed in 2007 and was reopened as the Tellus Science Museum in 2008. If you decide to go to this museum, your tour will be focus on four permanent galleries.

The first one is the Weinman Mineral Gallery to discover how the Earth was formed billions of years ago and to walk among hundreds of beautiful gems and minerals. Featured exhibits include more than fifty cases with a variety of gems, gold, and some Georgia’s most prized minerals.

The second one is the Fossil Gallery. Stare into the mouth of a Tyrannosaurus rex, catch a glimpse of a saber-tooth cat and discover how life on Earth began in the Tellus Fossil Gallery. This walk through history will take visitors past millions of years of dinosaurs, reptiles and giant mammals that dominated the land, sea and air before becoming extinct.

The third one is the Science in Motion. From Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to the Moon, the Science in Motion Gallery will propel visitors through 100 years of changes in transportation technology.

Finally, if you decide to go there with your children the last part of the museum should please you. Indeed, the world of science is every child’s playground in the Collins Family My Big Backyard. Children will step into the backyard wonderland of an imaginative young inventor named CJ. Throughout CJ’s backyard children will encounter inventions that will inspire everyone, from the littlest scientist to the more seasoned of experimenters. Youngsters can play with light, rainbows, mirrors and more in the greenhouse. The shed is filled with sound experiments, and the garage is a great place to discover the properties of magnets and work with electricity. All of the activities in the gallery are designed to inspire, challenge and educate children of all ages.

All these galleries are incredible but if we had to choose one, the Science in Motion deserves a little more attention. As you enter the gallery the Wright Brothers 1903 airplane is center stage, complete with Orville at the stick. Also in the first section are some turn of the century (start of the 20th century) cars, an early motorcycle and a small steam locomotive. The museum had the ingenuity to place a mirror below the cars to show all the mechanics of vehicles (see picture 1).
A second room expands on man's exploration of the atmosphere and space. One exhibit that immediately drew attention was a display of rockets. Starting with Robert Goddard's single-stage, liquid-fuel, controlled flight rocket in 1926, the exhibit displays the German V2 and the Mercury-Redstone and the Mercury-Atlas from the earliest American launches. A massive Saturn V, the rocket that took Americans to the moon, dwarfs the other rockets in the case. The display ends with the familiar external tank and solid rocket boosters from the space shuttle. Also in this area are Mercury and Gemini capsules, a Bell Helicopter, the first commercially available in the country, the cockpit of a popular aircraft, and a Rolls Royce engine.

This exhibition welcomed people of different cultural background, economic classes, educational levels, and physical abilities. Indeed, even children can be fascinated by all these inventions especially on the room of the space. There is enough place, one can easily travel with a wheelchair. The physical environment looked interesting and invited exploration.
All the exhibits are presenting in the same way, with no so much text but just enough to give basic information of the objects. Moreover, some exhibits are composed of old ads showing the different cars. The general light is dark but one bright spote is placed on top of each object to highlight it. If you would like to rest a few minutes, some benches are at your disposal.

However, it can be difficult to continue the visit chronologically. The dates are not sufficiently highlighted. For example, as you enter in the exhibition you don’t know if you have to go left or right. Chronologically the first exhibits is separate to the next one the left (see picture 2). Furthermore, the different rooms are not correctly separated, you can find a car in the room of the space (see picture3).

This museum fulfills its mission perfectly which is, as a reminder, educate, and inspire visitors to make scientific connections through dynamic exhibits and enriching experiences. To conclude, here is a Turkish proverb which highlights quite well the importance of museums “First see, after know”.

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[ 1 ]. http://tellusmuseum.org/
[ 2 ]. http://tellusmuseum.org/
[ 3 ]. http://tellusmuseum.org/