Parque Explora is an interactive science museum in Medellín, Colombia, loosely modeled after San Francisco's

Exploratorium The Exploratorium is a museum of science museum, science, technology museum, technology, and art museum, arts in San Francisco, California. Founded by physicist and educator Frank Oppenheimer in 1969, the museum was originally located in the ...

. It houses South America's largest freshwater aquarium, Explora Aquarium. The museum contains over 300 interactive attractions, as well as a 3D auditorium,

planetarium A planetarium (: planetariums or planetaria) is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation. A dominant feature of most planetariums is ...

, television studio, and

vivarium A vivarium (; or vivariums) is an area, usually enclosed, for keeping and raising animals or plants for observation or research. Water-based vivaria may have open tops providing they are not connected to other water bodies. An animal enclosur ...

. The museum opened in 2008. Parque explora 1

Architecture

Architect Alejandro Echeverri designed the museum. It has a combination of indoor and outdoor space. Its four red "cubes" house the museum's science and technology rooms.

Explora Aquarium

Explora aquarium houses more than 2,000 organisms and about 250 of Colombia's most common species. Its 25 tanks exhibit many of the most representative species that inhabit Colombia's rivers and oceans, including

piranha A piranha (, or ; ) is any of a number of freshwater fish species in the subfamily Serrasalminae, of the family Serrasalmidae, in the order Characiformes. These fish inhabit South American rivers, floodplains, lakes and reservoirs. Although ...

electric eel The electric eels are a genus, ''Electrophorus'', of neotropical freshwater fish from South America in the family Gymnotidae, of which they are the only members of the subfamily Electrophorinae. They are known for their electric fish, ability ...

s, and a panchromatic kaleidoscope of fish.

Location

Parque Explora is located in the northern area of Medellín, known as the North Zone (''Zona Norte''), between Parque Norte and the Botanical Garden of Medellín. The museum can be reached by the Medellín Metro on line A, at the University Station stop, which is named for the nearby University of Antioquia.

References

External links

Official website
Museums in Medellín Aquaria in Colombia Science museums in Colombia {{Colombia-museum-stub