Naturkundemuseum Bayern creates a modern and attractive place of learning for all generations that awakens curiosity about life and nature, promotes empathy for the diverse forms of life and encourages action for the future of our planet. The goal of all educational measures is to enable lifelong learning for everyone through inclusive and high-quality offerings - in line with the fourth "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDG) of the United Nations.
Naturkundemuseum Bayern further develops the well-established idea of the Museum Mensch und Natur (MMN) and invites visitors to a personal and playful encounter with science - presented in an interactive and comprehensible way. Naturkundemuseum Bayern opens up new perspectives in the fields of natural sciences, environmental education and protection, and the biological and environmental sciences. We want to awaken the thirst for research in our young and old museum guests, promote the next generation of natural scientists and encourage people to take a responsible approach to our planet!
What is the future of education? The Digital Life Design Conference, DLD 2022, addressed today's challenges, developments and potentials of education.
Participants: Michael John Gorman (founding director of BIOTOPIA), Bettina Stark-Watzinger (Federal Minister of Education and Research), Jeanne Rubner (TUM), Fabiana Bertram (Level Ex), Felix Ohswald (GoStudent).
Anyone entering the future Naturkundemuseum Bayern will become a researcher in visitor labs and observatories and discover countless similarities with other creatures on an interactive journey. Young and old, individual visitors and school classes will be able to wander through the planned seven thematic areas of the main exhibition, immerse themselves in various ecosystems or visit the "Entdeckothek" - a lending station for all kinds of equipment from telescopes to screen printing utensils. Touching, thinking and participating is encouraged!
A children's museum for the youngest invites children aged 0-6 and their companions to take on the role of animals from different Bavarian habitats. Trained staff and specially equipped rooms for education and knowledge transfer will enrich the educational offer.
"For us as a school institution, the construction of Naturkundemuseum Bayern is an incomparable opportunity to be able to maintain the already excellent neighborly cooperation with the Museum Mensch und Natur in recent years, now also with the future Naturkundemuseum Bayern."
Until the opening of the future museum, the BIOTOPIA Lab in the Botanical Garden already gives a small but impressive foretaste of the new Natural Science Museum - for example, with changing exhibitions, events, lectures, an experimental kitchen and hands-on workshop, and the changing " Mystery Object" from the Bavarian State Natural Science Collections (SNSB).
The BIOTOPIA Lab invites interested people to discover life by fabricating, experimenting, cultivating and microscoping within the framework of open hands-on activities such as "Eternal Garden", "Humus Sapiens" or "Fungi for Future". The target groups are children and families as well as adults. In addition, the immediate proximity to the Botanical Garden and the Nymphenburg Palace Park BIOTOPIA not only opens up extraordinary opportunities for cooperation, it also enables museum guests to observe and experience what they have learned in the open air. In the early summer of 2021, children already had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of "Frog, Newt & Co.- Understanding Nature" in an environmental education project lasting several weeks. And BIOTOPIA Lab@Home provides do-it-yourself ideas and experiments for the home - from bottle gardens and growing your own mushrooms to isolating DNA from fruit and vegetables.
With guided tours and workshops, events, lectures, the family-friendly BIOTOPIA festivals, vacation programs and longer-term educational projects, we give a broad public the opportunity to discover and explore current topics such as climate, nutrition or sustainable materials. In addition, renowned scientists* are given a platform to present their current research work to the public. This makes BIOTOPIA an exciting extracurricular place of learning that awakens interest in scientific interrelationships.
"As a teacher, I am excited about the possibility of using BIOTOPIA to help students experience the biological and environmental sciences. At BIOTOPIA, they can take on the role of researcher at the cutting edge of science, empathize with a wide variety of species, and build a personal relationship with nature....
These experiences are enormously important for future generations. Especially in light of the environmental challenges we face, BIOTOPIA will actively help promote responsible stewardship of our planet by our children."
Schools and school classes are a core target group of the future Naturkundemuseum Bayern: From soil ecology to genetics, from nutrition to new material science - adapted to the Bavarian curriculum, the BIOTOPIA Lab offers specific school class programs with a variety of topics from biology and environmental sciences for all school types and grades. School classes from middle schools, junior high schools and high schools can, for example, isolate DNA or explore life in water bodies in a combined program with the Museum Mensch und Natur. And at the public climate learning game in the Botanical Garden, it's not just schoolchildren who can use smartphones to expand their knowledge of trees and their importance for the climate. The elementary school curriculum is supported by courses such as "The Eternal Garden" and "Bare Your Teeth!".
Freely available digital teaching materials and actions supplement the range of offerings - such as the "Natur im Fokus" (Nature in Focus) photo competition or the Citizen Science and Arts project "Dawn Chorus". We are continuously developing new course topics - for example on climate tipping points, the biodiversity crisis in amphibians or the diet of Bavarian forest animals.
All info on current school class programs and booking is available here or contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
"The BIOTOPIA Lab plays a major role for the Erzbischöfliche Maria-Ward-Realschule Nymphenburg as an extracurricular place of learning. Not only the proximity to the Botanical Garden makes the project particularly appealing for our school, but also the various curriculum-oriented workshops in diverse areas (observing and grasping, cooking and cultivating as well as researching and fabricating)...
The BIOTOPIA beds in the Botanical Garden play a special role in this - our students from the Bees and Garden AG are already full of anticipation for the joint care and cultivation."
BIOTOPIA supports teachers in the field of education for sustainable development (ESD). Within the framework of our training events, educational experts prepare current topics suitable for teaching and develop new learning and teaching methods for gaining scientific knowledge with you. In 2022, our series "Confronting the Biodiversity Crisis" already dealt with the biodiversity of amphibians. In 2023, the topic will be bird biodiversity: Collecting bird voices for nature conservation - expert lectures, field trip and the Dawn Chorus project.
Registration for the teacher training for June 18, 2024
At the same time, under Naturkundemuseum Bayern Digital you will find an extensive, bundled offering of digital teaching materials and hands-on activities that make the biological and environmental sciences lively and tangible. How do researchers see our everyday life? Bring scientists into the classroom via video or podcast. Or encourage your students to become active themselves.
"The Museum Mensch und Natur (Man and Nature Museum) has already been a magnet for visitors, offering vivid exhibits and presentations for all age groups. The new museum BIOTOPIA, which is being built on this, will in future offer the opportunity to learn more about the consequences for mankind of climate change and species extinction, among other things, at a time when ...
... not only to be able to study scientifically sound presentations and illustrations, but also to enable action-oriented knowledge acquisition. Therefore, as teachers at a secondary school, we are particularly looking forward to the methodologically new approaches to bringing biological knowledge closer to children and young people, thereby encouraging them to think and to make lasting changes in their behavior."
Building on existing collaborations of the Museum Mensch und Natur, BIOTOPIA also promotes and maintains longer-term partnerships with schools in the areas of STEM and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Research classes regularly come to the BIOTOPIA Lab and test new workshops on exciting STEM topics with our educational experts. In the adjacent Botanical Garden, a school garden with raised beds is available for workshops and school projects, where students can plant and tend beds or create ponds as part of AGs and classroom projects. This special extracurricular place of learning promotes an understanding of the interactions between different life forms in a biodiverse environment and encourages students to take action themselves - far beyond the actual classroom. If you are interested in collaborating on workshops, field trips or projects, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
"Our students from the Maria-Ward-Realschule in Nymphenburg really enjoyed working on the topic of 'Hautnah', as they were allowed to create a quiz with only a few specifications by researching on their own...
Many were willing to hand out the quiz and provide assistance. On this day, the students learned that their efforts are appreciated and that they are able to overcome shyness and connect with people. They also learned that a museum can be exciting and understandable."
The courses for elementary schools can also be booked by preschool, kindergarten and after-school groups during the Bavarian school vacations (with the exception of Friday afternoons, weekends and vacation programs when the BIOTOPIA Lab is open to the public). Until the new museum opens, we plan to significantly expand our range of offerings for younger children as well and test different formats. Contact at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
We work closely networked and synergistic with many educational institutions, such as:
Botanischer Garten München-Nymphenburg, Bayerische Akademie für Naturschutz und Landschaftspflege (ANL), Deutsches Museum München, Didaktik der Biologie Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg, Fakultät für Biologie LMU, Fakultät für Psychologie und Pädagogik LMU, Lehrstuhl der Didaktik für Physik LMU, Department Educational Sciences TUM, Münchner Volkshochschule, Museumspädagogisches Zentrum München (MPZ), MUC Labs, Museumspädagogischer Verband Arbeitskreis Nachhaltigkeit, Youth Net e.V., Tezba - Technik Zukunft in Bayern 4.0, ZAUM - Zentrum Allergie u. Umwelt TUM/ HMGU and many more.
Naturkundemuseum Bayern will link museums, educational and research institutions throughout Bavaria and create synergies. Thus, a central goal of Naturkundemuseum Bayern, as the heart of a Bavaria-wide network, is to promote the natural sciences with innovative ideas in all regions of Bavaria and to give impetus to education in the fields of natural history and environmental protection. The more than 6,000 schools in Bavaria are also to benefit from this network through excursions, further training and teaching materials.
Naturkundemuseum Bayern also sees itself as an interface between science, politics and the public. Thus, we want to make Munich and Bavaria visible as a top science location through traveling exhibitions "made in Bavaria" and educational programs. As co-initiator of the Munich Science Communication Lab - a joint project with the LMU, the Deutsches Museum and the Helmholtz-Zentrum-München - Naturkundemuseum Bayern and the founding director and chair of Life Sciences in Society LMU, Prof. Michael John Gorman, are dedicated to the central topic of "Planetary Health" with new formats of science communication.
Naturkundemuseum Bayern
Botanisches Institut
Menzinger Str. 67
80638 München, Germany
BIOTOPIA Lab:
Phone: +49 (0)89 178 61-411
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