Canada Science and Technology Museum facts for kids
| Musée des sciences et de la technologie du Canada | |
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Exterior of the Canada Science and Technology Museum
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| Former name | National Museum of Science and Technology (1968–2000) |
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| Established | 1 April 1968 |
| Location | 1867 St. Laurent Boulevard, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Type | Science and technology museum |
| Owner | Ingenium |
| Ingenium | |
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The Canada Science and Technology Museum (often called CSTM) is a really cool place in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It's a national museum that focuses on science and technology. Its main job is to keep and share Canada's amazing history of scientific discoveries and technological inventions.
The museum is a big building, about 13,458 square meters (144,860 square feet) in size. It's run by an organization called Ingenium. Ingenium also manages two other national museums in Canada.
This museum started as a part of the old National Museum of Canada. It got its own building in 1967 and became its own museum in 1968. Back then, it was called the National Museum of Science and Technology. It changed to its current name in 2000. The museum building had a huge makeover from 2014 to 2017, making it even better for visitors.
The museum has a massive collection of over 60,000 objects! Many of these are shown in the museum's exhibits. It also hosts special temporary exhibits and ones that travel to other places.
Contents
History of the Museum
The museum's story began as a science and technology section of the National Museum of Canada. Even though the main museum started way back in 1842, its science and technology part was only created in 1966.
Early Days and First Director
David McCurdy Baird was hired in October 1966 to lead this new science and technology section. He helped design and set up the museum. In April 1967, an old bakery and distribution center in Ottawa was chosen as the museum's new home.
The museum officially opened its doors to the public on November 16, 1967. It was an instant hit! In its first year, over 400,000 people came to visit.
Becoming Its Own Museum
On April 1, 1968, the different parts of the National Museum of Canada became separate museums. The science and technology section became the National Museum of Science and Technology. Other parts became the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian Museum of Nature. A new group called the National Museums of Canada Corporation was formed to manage these new museums.
The museum's early exhibits were inspired by interactive museums in Europe. They wanted visitors to get hands-on! Some really big items were placed outside, like an Atlas rocket in 1973 and an old lighthouse in 1980. The lighthouse was built in the 1860s in Cape North, Nova Scotia, then taken apart and moved to Ottawa.
In 1990, a new organization called Ingenium was created. It took over managing the National Museum of Science and Technology, along with the Canada Aviation and Space Museum and the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum.
The 21st Century and Renovations
In 2000, the museum got its current name: the Canada Science and Technology Museum. In the early 2000s, there were ideas to move the museum to a new location, but that didn't happen.
In September 2014, the museum had to close because of some problems with the building, including mold and a wall that wasn't safe. In November 2014, it was announced that the museum would stay closed until 2017 for a huge renovation project costing C$80.5 million. Most of the original building was updated and more exhibit space was added.
During the closure, some large outdoor items, like the Atlas rocket, were removed. The rocket was taken apart and destroyed because of rules from its owner, the United States Air Force. The museum also lent out some of its exhibits to other places during this time. The newly renovated museum reopened on November 17, 2017.
In 2018, the museum paused collecting new large items. This was until new storage areas at the Ingenium Centre were ready.
Museum Grounds and Building
The museum is located in Ottawa, near the Sheffield Glen neighborhood. It sits right next to the Ingenium Centre.
The Ingenium Centre
The Ingenium Centre is a special building that holds Ingenium's research labs and storage for all the museums it runs. This includes the Canada Science and Technology Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canadian Agriculture and Food Museum. Before the Ingenium Centre was built, the museum's observatory was in that spot, but it was taken down in 2016.
The museum grounds also have a 10-acre (4-hectare) park in front of the building. A path leads visitors right to the entrance. New landscaping was approved for the park in 2017.
The Museum Building Itself
The museum first moved into this spot in 1967, using an old bakery and distribution center. From 2014 to 2017, the building was completely updated and expanded by a Canadian architecture firm called NORR. The renovations made the building much safer and better. They added earthquake-resistant features and a brand new roof with photovoltaic (solar) panels. A new mechanical room was also built to control the temperature perfectly, which is important for protecting old artifacts.
The museum's entrance has a cool, raised roof that is 40 feet (12 meters) high. The entrance is covered in white ceramic material. This material also acts as a giant 250-foot (76-meter) long projection screen! About 21,799 square feet (2,025 square meters) of this ceramic material was used on the building. Special stone slabs were used with the tiles to handle the cold Canadian weather. These slabs also helped the architects create sharp angles and smooth surfaces in their design. A short video plays on the LED screen, and a second part of the film is projected on a flat wall facing St. Laurent Boulevard in the evenings.
Inside the museum's entrance, there's an interactive light and sound show inspired by the auroras (Northern Lights). The building has five main galleries, a space for temporary exhibits, an artifacts gallery, creative areas, classrooms, theaters, cafeterias, shops, and offices. There's over 80,000 square feet (7,432 square meters) of exhibit space! The museum's heating and cooling system is even part of the exhibit, with colorful pipes visible through glass walls.
Museum Exhibitions
The museum has many permanent, temporary, and travelling exhibitions. The exhibits are designed to be very interactive, meaning you can often touch, play, and learn hands-on. While many exhibits are interactive, you'll also find traditional display cases with interesting artifacts.
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The museum sometimes creates exhibits with other Canadian government groups. For example, the Cipher-Decipher exhibit was made with the Communications Security Establishment. Some exhibits also have sponsors, like the ZOOOMobile, which is a car-building station sponsored by Michelin. Even with sponsors, the museum always controls what goes into the exhibits.
Some of the permanent exhibits you can explore include:
- Artifact Alley: This is in the middle of the museum and shows over 700 artifacts!
- Sound by Design: Here, you can try out different instruments and musical inventions.
- The Great Outdoors: This exhibit is all about transportation and outdoor fun.
- Medical Sensations: This cool exhibit lets you see the bones, muscles, and blood systems inside your own body! It has nearly 100 medical items from the museum's collection, including a bottle with the first appendix ever removed in an appendectomy.
- Wearable Tech: This exhibit shows off different technologies you can wear, like a modernized amauti (an Inuit baby carrier), Google Glass, and a Newtsuit (a special diving suit).
- Crazy Kitchen: This is the oldest exhibit in the museum and explores how our brains see things. It's one of the few original exhibits from when the museum opened in 1967.
- Locomotives: The huge trains inside the museum are also original exhibits from 1967. They are now part of an exhibit about steam power, shown next to a steam engine from a Canadian Coast Guard ship.
Museum Collections
The museum's collection keeps objects and information that tell the story of Canada's scientific and technological past. It started with a small group of artifacts from the old National Museum of Canada in 1966. In 1989, the museum started focusing on how science and technology changed Canada.
The museum gets most of its items (about 90%) as donations. People often give items to the museum themselves. The museum doesn't accept donations with special conditions. As of 2021, the museum has about 60,000 individual objects and 80,000 photos and other historical papers. This makes it the largest collection of scientific and technological artifacts in Canada! The items range from the 12th century all the way to today.
Items not on display are kept safe in the Ingenium Centre's storage facilities. The museum's library and archives are also there, shared with the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum.
The collection is divided into eight main groups:
- Communications
- Computing and Mathematics
- Domestic Technologies (things used at home)
- Energy and Mining
- Industrial Technology
- Medical Technology
- Scientific Instruments
- Transportation
Special Collections
The museum also has several smaller, very special collections:
- CN Photo Collection: This has 750,000 photos from as early as the 1850s, donated by the Canadian National Railway in 1999.
- Petrovic Collection: This includes over 130 old tools like rulers and compasses from the 12th to 19th centuries.
- A collection of 70 radio artifacts.
- A collection of 60 kites, mostly from Asia.
The museum's medical collection has over 8,000 items. Many came from the former Academy of Medicine Collection. In 2021, the museum started a COVID-19 pandemic collection. This includes things like the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and the 10-millionth face mask made at a Canadian car factory.
If the museum ever decides to remove an item from its collection, it must first offer it to another museum.
Famous Items You Can See
Here are some of the cool and famous items in the museum's collection:
- The last spike used to complete the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway.
- A McLaughlin-Buick car and a railway car used during the 1939 royal tour of Canada by the King and Queen.
- The Bras d'Or prototype hydrofoil, a boat that lifts out of the water.
- Two nocturnals, old tools from the 17th century used to tell time at night.
- A Popemobile, donated in 1985.
- A Henry Seth Taylor steam buggy, which was the very first car made in Canada! The museum got it in 1984.
For computers, they have:
- Two Millionaire calculators.
- The DRTE Computer, given to the museum in 1968.
Other notable items include:
- An electronic sackbut, a very early electronic musical instrument.
- The first electron microscope made in North America.
- Canada's largest refracting telescope, from the Dominion Observatory.
- The original hitchBOT, a robot that traveled across Canada.
- George Klein's first prototype for the world's first motorized wheelchair. The museum got this from another museum in 2005.
Research at the Museum
For its first 20 years, the museum mostly collected different types of machines and studied how they worked. Later, in the 1980s, it started looking at how these technologies affected society and culture.
The museum also has a research facility called The Living Lab for the University of Ottawa. This lab lets university researchers study children in a more natural setting than a typical lab.
The museum publishes an academic journal called the Material Culture Review. It works with the Canadian Museum of History on this journal, which shares research about historical items in Canadian museums.
See also
In Spanish: Museo de Ciencia y Tecnología de Canadá para niños
- List of museums in Ottawa
- List of science museums
