The Children’s Museum Costa Rica is the first museum of its kind in Central America. It is a magical place for both children and adults who want to learn through games. The museum is located at the Former Central Prison, an impressive brick structure built in 1906. The Children’s Museum offers guided tours that can be:
* Exploratory Visits: In this type of visit, the teacher may bring their students to learn about the contents of 37 interactive rooms, with such diverse subjects ranging from science, the universe, balance, music, Egyptian culture history, the recycling process to technological advances.
* Theme: On these visits you can tour some rooms of the museum by specific themes. Some of them are: “Technology in Everyday Life,” “Man and his environment”; “Bright Smiles”, “Costa Rica, its Land and its People”, “The Senses”. This option can be tailored to the teachers needs.
* Complete Sightseeing Excursion: On this type of visit, the Children’s Museum offers two hours of pure fun doing workshops, completing an interactive brochure, visiting new attractions and competing in a challenges rally. The teacher can choose the theme to be developed in accordance with the Museum’s available material.
The museum also has a library, ramps for disabled access, a coffee shop and souvenir shop, without leaving behind that the Children’s Museum is home to the National Auditorium. The museum teaches about children’s rights, the 
universe, the Earth, living creatures, interactive exhibits, galleries, among others, that’s why the museum has several educational rooms, among which the following stand out:
• The Universe and the Solar System: shows some of the most important features of the Solar System and the planets that compose it.
• Space Technology: allows learning the evolution of technology and modern space research. Here in the spotlight is the figure of the Costa Rican astronaut Frankiln Chang, his work as a researcher and astronaut in the various space missions that he has participated.
• Ecosystems: shows the main features of Costa Rican ecosystems such as the rain forest, moorland, reefs and cloud forest. It also presents the various protected areas of the country.
• Technology EnSalada: An area that displays multimedia technology. Visitors have the opportunity to interact with educational software on various topics.
• Costa Rica, it’s Land and it’s People: A journey through the cultural history of Costa Rica, through spaces representing a time and place, in terms of population, economy, trade, religion and other aspects of social life. The primary objective of the room is to strengthen the cultural identity of the Costa Ricans.
• Kal Yok: exhibits a portion of the rich biodiversity in the ecosystems of Costa Rica, both on land and sea. Visitors can observe animals in terrariums and tanks that recreate their natural environments. The space is intended to make the visitor think on our responsibility in caring for these endangered ecosystems.
• That’s how my story begins: it develops the theme of heritage and human development. As well the room shows the subjects of fertilization, birth and the role of family in caring for the baby. Visitors can experience how much we weight inside a women’s womb.
• Radio Studio: shows visitors the world of radio through a recording studio, learning how to produce sound waves and transmit these to the whole world thanks to radio programs. Visitors can make their own recordings of known stories and songs.
• Television Studio: creating a small T.V. show, in a modern video recording equipment. Not only will you learn how various programs are developed, such as news and talk shows, but also how television comes from the studio to our house.
• Human Body: it teaches the most important features of the systems and senses that make up the human body and highlights some of the diseases occurring in different systems such as osteoporosis and AIDS.
• Bright Smiles: exhibits the importance of oral hygiene as a means of disease prevention. Shows the components of the mouth, the room also features models of the mouth and teeth and highlights tips for a healthier mouth. The site maintains a dental clinic “Dr Muelitas Program” where school groups have the opportunity to be diagnosed and treated.
• Electricity and Magnetism: it teaches the basics of electricity and magnetism through experimentation. Through a series of devices you can experience electrical currents in your body and produce magnetism. The room also shows electricity generation from various sources such as hydro, wind, solar and geothermal.
• Telecommunications: it shows the telephony history, telephone transmission and the importance of the 911 emergency service.
• The Bank: It reveals the history of banking and money, the importance of savings and the services offered by banks, along with the related technology to banking services, such as the ATM. 
• Matter and Hydrocarbons: presents the characteristics of matter and its components, highlights the origin of hydrocarbons and it’s importance as a source of energy and other products.
• Pollution and Recycling: highlights the problem of solid waste and the importance of encouraging practices such as recycling, especially plastics and proper waste management.
• Prevention on wheels: it helps consider and analyze the prevention of accidents at home and tells us to whom we must communicate at these mishaps.
• Golden Bean School: displays and highlights the importance of coffee in Costa Rican society. It also explains the process from the coffee cultivation and processing until the coffee is consumed.
• Carmen Lyra: it highlights the work of Carmen Lyra, especially as a writer and educator. A robot with the Carmen Lyra figure tells the most famous stories of the writer.
• Torrejas House: built with an inclination of 20 degrees, deceives the senses to help us understand the physiological phenomenon of balance.
• Aviation: shows some of the most important aspects of the aviation history and how aircraft’s work. Recreates the cockpit of a 737 airplane and gives the opportunity to use computerized flight simulators, as well as observing the model of Leonardo Da Vinci’s flying machine.
• Games: highlights the importance of family games as a means for recreation, communication and respect.
• Musical Scale: shows how the sounds can be organized in a musical scale to create music.
• Musical Orchestra: shows the history of musical instruments, you can also experience the involvement of different musical instruments in a song.
• Technological adventure: designed to explore the world of microchips and computers. Children can interact with an industrial robotic arm programmed to form words from lettered cubes. Finally in this place lives “Voltio” a high-tech robot dog brought directly from Japan, capable of dancing, playing with his ball and showing his many other skills that make it seem real.
• Playing with numbers and shapes: introduces visitors to mathematical concepts and geometry through games.
• The Magic of Learning by playing: young children have the opportunity through toys and games to develop their skills and abilities.
• Nutritional Area: is divided into cereals area, which explains how to make a cereal and its nutritional significance, and the fruits and vegetables area which explains the nutritional importance of consuming them.
• Sustainable City: teaches how to better preserve our resources and how working together we can build a sustainable city, since environmental pollution is a problem that is growing, mainly in cities.
Also in the coming months, the Children’s Museum will open three new attractions:
• Banana Room: CORBANA Company and the Children’s Museum came together to create a banana plantation, as well as their selection and packaging process before being exported. In the room there is also a recreation of a typical house of the banana-growing area and information about the impact of this crop in the country’s history.
• The farm: in this area children learn about life on a farm with real animals and many surprises.
• Glass Recycling: dedicated to the theme of glass recycling and its relevance to save the planet.
• Once upon a time: under construction exhibition, which aims to highlight the issues of the origin and history of writing. Through games the room tries to promote the reading habit.
• City Park: under construction, it will show the importance of the municipality and municipal services.
• Sustainable City: under construction, it pretends to make the visitor think on those practices and way of life that damages the environment and the importance of building sustainable cities, through waste management, energy use and environmentally friendly technologies.
• Water: under construction, will show the importance of water resources as a source of life and the different uses of the resource. The room highlights the importance of saving, proper use of the resource and its protection. It explains the technologies of harvesting and purification.
Address: 9th Avenue, 4th St., at the Former Central Prison, district: Merced, canton: San Jose, province: San Jose, Costa Rica. Zone postal code: 10102.
GPS Coordinates: 9.940383,-84.080183 (9°56’25.38″N, 84°04’48.66″W)
Schedule: from Tuesday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Phone: +506 2258-4929
Fax:+506 2223-0600
Address map: Click here to view directions from Central Park, San Jose, Costa Rica TO the Children’s Museum in San Jose, Costa Rica at Google Maps
The currency history in Costa Rica, from the “Real” to the “Colón”, is the new permanent exhibit at the Jaime Solera Bennett Numismatics Museum. This exhibit shows the evolution of the various means of exchange since 1502 until today, in a very dynamic way. The tour explains about money and its use, and portrays a very interesting history of the country’s currency as the use of barter, the use of metallic coins which had its beginnings in the colonial period, the use of foreign coins and coffee and banana tickets, the issue of banknotes of different banks until the Central Bank consolidation, the symbolism shown in coins and bills, among other interesting topics. The most beautiful and valuable coins, bills, dies and coffee and bananas tickets from the Central Bank’s collection are displayed in this exhibition.
arts, always full of avant-garde proposals. The youth complex is constantly developing ideas for young people, plus it will house the Historic Prison Museum to reconstruct the history of the Former Central Penitentiary in a modern and dynamic way.
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