The Children's Museum of Bogotá (Fundación Museo de los Niños) was a privately managed

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

foundation in Bogotá, Colombia's capital city, established in 1986 and aimed at teaching children about

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and Reproducibility, reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in me ...

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

and

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

s. The foundation operated the Children's Museum in an 8,000 m² (86,000 ft.²) building in the geographical centre of Bogotá, in which over 23 different modules and hundreds of individual exhibits were housed. The

served approximately 150,000 visitors per year — 69% of them children under 11 years of age that come to ''"learn by playing"'' in the exhibits. In 2018, it became a park for children. Its main attractions are bouncing houses, bicycle rides, and races for kids. In addition to guided tours, the Children's Museum conducted

workshop Beginning with the Industrial Revolution era, a workshop may be a room, rooms or building which provides both the area and tools (or machinery) that may be required for the manufacture or repair of manufactured goods. Workshops were the on ...

s, special vacation programs for children and highly structured events for schools. To celebrate their 15th anniversary, the museum invited the most important young Colombian artists to each paint a

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

on the museum walls. This resulted in a collection of 42 murals which have become a landmark for art students in Bogotá. Another highly important program of the Museum is the Computer Clubhouse – an international program promoted by the Intel Corporation and the

Museum of Science, Boston The Museum of Science (MoS) is a science museum and indoor zoo in Boston, Massachusetts, located in Science Park, a plot of land spanning the Charles River. Along with over 700 interactive exhibits, the museum features a number of live presentat ...

. Computer Clubhouse teaches children of low income families computer skills for computer animation, graphic design, composing and editing, as a means to close the digital divide in the society. An introduction to

robotics Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrate ...

is also included in this program. In the outer gardens of the museum, a real

Boeing 720 The Boeing 720 is an American narrow-body airliner produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Announced in July 1957 as a 707 derivative for shorter flights from shorter runways, the 720 first flew on November 23, 1959. Its type certificate was ...

aircraft (without actual function, fuel, electricity or engines) was present to teach children the basics of aeronautics. The airliner was donated by

Avianca Avianca S.A. ( acronym in Spanish for ''Aerovias del Continente Americano S.A.'', "Airways of the American Continent") is a Colombian airline. It has been the flag carrier of Colombia since December 5, 1919, when it was initially registered und ...

(the biggest airline in Colombia) in the mid-1980s. The museum also featured a room with a small representation of a city's roads to teach children traffic signs and behaviour while driving or walking on the streets

External links

Museo de los Niños de Bogotá
Children's museums Museums in Bogotá Child-related organisations in Colombia 1986 establishments in Colombia {{Colombia-museum-stub