The Nature Park & Galleries was conceived and founded in 2003 by Prof. Jeff Camhi (Kimchi), who remains its director, accompanied by Talia Levy Marom, its manager. The museum functions as a unit of the Hebrew University’s Authority for Community and Youth, but carries out its own planning and fund-raising. The museum offers people of all ages a wide range of experiences relating to Israeli natural history, science, and research.
The museum, which extends from the campus’ main entrance to its far end, is dotted with interactive explanatory signs as well as fully developed exhibits. Almost all the exhibits are wheelchair-accessible. The museum can be visited for free any day of the week.
A flip-up cabinet just inside the main campus entrance offers visitors a printed guide to the museum. Entitled Campus Strolls in English, or "בשבילי הקמפוס" in Hebrew, the guide also points up other special campus highlights.
Established in 2003, NPG shares the University's knowledge and ideas with the public.[citation needed] NPG began by interpreting for visitors objects and activities already present on campus. Later it commenced, and continues, implementing major permanent displays, as at most museums, mostly out of doors. Initially visitors were led by trained student guides, whereas now visitors guide themselves, using several interpretive formats. Originally a fee was charged for scheduled tours, now the museum is free and open all hours every day. Published research by NPG focuses on novel ways of enhancing visitor experiences in different types of destinations. NPG is a unit of the university's Authority for Community and Youth[1] and carries out its own fund raising.[2][3]
The Nature Park & Galleries opened to the public in August 2003.[2] As originally conceived, it operated a set of guided programs on approximately ten (later fifteen) different subjects. Each program, lasting about one hour, took place on the Edmund J. Safra Science Campus of the Hebrew University. These programs included walking tours, sit-down demonstrations, behind-the-scenes visits and workshops, each for a fee. The guides, mostly graduate students, were trained in guiding by a masters-level university course. Underlying these developments lay the concept that the Edmund J. Safra Campus (and no doubt many other university campuses) already was a museum – or almost. Collections available for NPG's guided tours included the National Collections of Natural History,[4] the National Library of Israel, the Albert Einstein Archive,[5] the Magnes Press,[6] forefront research laboratories, the campus architecture, trees and gardens. All that was needed for turning this into a museum was a means of interpreting these and other campus features – that is, to tell their "stories" – for the public. The student tour guides provided that interpretation.
Beginning in 2013, NPG changed its approach to interpretation.[citation needed] No longer are student-guided programs offered. Rather, an array of means for self-guiding was developed, including brochures, guide books, smart-phone audio-guides, and permanent signage. NPG is now open to all, for free, at any time. According to NPG's Founding Director, Professor Emeritus Jeff Camhi (Kimchi) of the university's Life Sciences Institute, the switch from student guides to a self guiding framework brings the NPG experience in line with the most common way people visit museums around the world. This switch also offers greater financial sustainability, and exposure to a wider visiting public.[3][7]
NPG functions as a unit of the Hebrew University's Authority for Community and Youth,[1] but carries out its own fund-raising.[citation needed]
The Nature Park and Galleries outdoors museum of nature and science presents six permanent exhibits:[2][3][7][8]
Explanatory sign in front of a white poplar tree on the Nature Tree Walk.The Discovery Tree Walk: Fifty trees from habitats all around the world make this campus a botanical treasure. Each of these fifty trees is highlighted by an interactive sign that points out the tree’s botanical, geographical, historic, and folkloric features. One sign, for instance features a slice from the huge trunk of a 2000 year old Giant Sequoia tree from California. It stands beside Israel’s oldest living Sequoia tree.A part of the Bird Migration Walk exhibition.
Bird Migration Trail: Fifty birds, sculpted in bronze, painted true to life, and permanently installed among the campus gardens, are the work of Israeli artist and bird fancier Roi Shinar. The fifty are divided into four separate displays, according to the season of their annual appearance on campus. The four are:
Autumn arrivals from Europe and Asia
Spring arrivals from Africa
Autumn and spring stop-over birds in transit between Eurasia and Africa
Permanent resident birds.
Signage gives each bird’s English, Hebrew and scientific name.
Plant Evolution Garden: In this lovely garden, one walks through 500 million years of plant history. Signs explain the major turning points in plant evolution and direct the visitor's view toward features of the living plants that illustrate these turning points. Among the turning points featured are vegetation's initial movement from water to land, the later development of roots, leaves, and vertical growth, the first seed plants, early conifers and early flowering plants, and adaptations to moist, and to arid environments by modern plants.
Bridging the Sciences: This indoor exhibit presents various scientific disciplines and explores how scientists who work together across disciplinary boundaries can sometimes arrive at major scientific achievements. The Hebrew University’s science faculty is featured.View of a section of the 'Bridging the Sciences' exhibit.
Order-in-Nature Boardwalk: This specially built walkway takes you through a varied grove where you can enjoy a rich variety of wild plants, and learn from the signage how nature, though seemingly disorderly, in fact has its own order. Or you can just sit and enjoy the peace and quiet.Sign at entrance to Order-in-Nature Boardwalk, inviting visitors to a self-guided tour.
Wildflower Boardwalk: This promenade courses through a spectacular bloom of many wildflower species, especially in spring. The signage offers explanations, riddles, and thought-provoking questions in natural science. Note: In recent years, the plants of this area have received fire-prevention treatment in late spring which has reduced somewhat the number and diversity of blooming plants in that season.
Flower-of-the-month interactive wheel, as found on the Wildflower Boardwalk.
NPG publishes books interpreting the treasures of the Safra Campus:
Michael Avishai and Jeff Camhi, Fifty Tree Tales: Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram Tree Guide (Jerusalem: Nature Park & Galleries, 2007). Available at the Michlol (מכלול) bookstore, Edmond J. Safra campus.
