Savremena students had the opportunity to visit a genuine cultural attraction of Dorćol, the Museum of Science & Technology that houses a collection of over 5,000 artefacts from various fields, from a collection of computers and information technologies, to electronic measurement devices, and craft machines and tools.

In addition to the main exhibition, students also visited the Children’s Museum where they learnt about the connections between technology and toys.

The Museum of Science & Technology preserves technological heritage of Serbia and encourages scientific research in the field of history and technology, and it has also done a lot to make its contents child-friendly so as to raise their awareness that cultural heritage should be preserved. This is also important for the popularisation of science and technology as important areas of cultural life.

Children enjoyed the exhibits from the collections of radios, graphics technologies, models and prototypes, photo technologies, collection of typewriters, and recording studio equipment. Students were accompanied by teachers Melanija Savić and Željko Zarić, and the adventure could begin!

CHILDREN’S MUSEUM AND SCIENCE CENTRE

The Museum of Science & Technology also houses the exhibits of the Children’s Museum and the Toys’ Museum which was especially interesting to Savremena students, given that the space and the presentation are fully adapted for children of their age. The first section offers over 150 toys from the first half of the 20th century.

The second, more contemporary exhibit is interactive, and it makes use of the new technology of augmented reality. Here, our fifth-graders learnt more about different topics through a combination of computer-generated imagery and information from the real world using their mobile phones.

Unlike other museums where children are usually warned not to touch exhibits, the main idea of this specialised museum is – please, feel free to touch the exhibits. This only confirms how modernistic and advanced this Dorćol museum is.

Another part of the Museum of Science & Technology is the Science Centre where Savremena students had the opportunity to experience science as a complete knowledge system independent of the strict division to scientific disciplines and school subjects. There is a similarity between the approach to knowledge in Primary School Savremena and this Science Centre in this regard, because we at Savremena also strive to erase rigid boundaries between subjects and insist on an interdisciplinary approach.

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH TO LEARNING FOR FUTURE SCIENTISTS

One of the best examples of such practice is STEM education, envisioned as a combination of several academic disciplines: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

This practice was the main reason for visiting the Science Centre that promotes learning through discovery, participation, experimentation and direct contact with the problem. The permanent exhibition of the Science Centre comprises 20 artefacts designed to familiarise visitors with the phenomena in the fields of maths, astronomy, physics, biology, psychology and logic, so children were encouraged to use reasoning and problem solving methods they practice at school through play.

The visit to the Museum of Science & Technology truly expanded the children’s horizons, and this is why this definitely won’t be our last visit to it.