Look and touch at the University Museum of Natural History

29 September 2004

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History (www.oum.ox.ac.uk) has been awarded £546,000 from the ReDiscover fund (a joint venture between the Millennium Commission, the Wellcome Trust, and the Wolfson Foundation) towards its £778,000 ‘Feeling Good!’ project which will include a series of touchable displays directed at all visitors, particularly those with impaired vision or learning difficulties.

The displays will include ‘Evolution’ - displays on Darwin and Wallace, and evolutionary case histories based on the work of Oxford scientists; ‘Biodiversity’ - integrating living and fossil animals, to complement new displays on vertebrate animals and human origins; and a 90 metre (300 feet) run of cases on the three thousand million year history of life. Highlights will include touchable fossil walls, and a free-standing display of touchables, from owls to skulls to meteorites.

The new project builds on the success of the museum’s ongoing programme of display renewal. Visitor numbers have increased by 28 per cent in the last four years, and have now passed 300,000 a year. The University Museum of Natural History is free to visitors, and runs a major education, access and outreach programme, plus a ‘learning zone’ website, all of which build on the new exhibits. In 2003-4 14,500 children in organised groups visited the museum.