CATAVENTO

Weathervane Museum, home of the curious in São Paulo
  Meet the Catavento Cultural Space, a museum with a different proposal: move, interact and learn from all the collection of works combining culture and entertainment

The monitors space are experiences that change the states, colors and smells of the chemical elements. The number of experiments varies according to the age of audience

And if they said that in one place you can create giant soap bubbles, spinning a ball of two tons, form illusions with mirrors, touring the sights of Rio de Janeiro, touch a real meteorite and talk with Santos Dumont in an escalating you believe? This place exists and is located in downtown São Paulo.

Opened in 2009, the old building of Industries Palace, the Catavento Cultural and Educational is an educational museum with a proposal somewhat unusual, which combines interactivity and knowledge in their more than 250 attractions spread over eight thousand square meters of space . For children, it is an educational party.

Four major themes divide the museum: Universe, Life, Ingenuity and Society. The attractions range from the formation of the universe and the heavenly bodies, through the formation of life on the planet, the great inventions of humanity and the contemporary problems of modern society, such as drugs, teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

For each of the pinwheel stations, a team of expert guides (university students in courses related to each of the sections), explains to visitors all over the place of the collection with the help of videos, sounds, projections and much that can be played . For guided tours, there are options 12 themed itineraries that explore specific issues in various sections.

To better enjoy your ride, the viajeaqui prepared a small script by sections of the museum, indicating the attractions you can not miss, see below:

The sounds and colors of the Universe

How did the universe? And the planets, as they reached the current state? And the Sun than it is formed? These and other questions are answered in your visit to the Space section. But before you start the script, take a look at the ball of granite that is outside. Looking from afar it seems very light, since you can move it with one finger, but make no mistake: it weighs two tons and moves only by convergence forces faciliam their movement.

After checking it, it's time to meet the ends of the cosmos in the first installation of the museum, which already leaves the well acclimated visitor at the entrance, through a dark hallway that leads to the first room, with scale models of the sun and planets, plus a series of reproductions of what may have happened after the Big Bang.

In this section you can also follow the seven striking phases of the history of astronomy, check the sounds of the universe and know how our galaxy. You can also touch a meteorite over six thousand years.

Life and its origins

After seeing how stars and galaxies formed, the tour continues to show how life and the planet came to what we know today. A good way to start this part of the visit is for the reproduction of all biomes known on Earth, at the beginning of this new section.

The section devoted to the beginning of life and the evolution of animals is what draws more attention in this part of the tour. The main attractions are a giant panel with the process proposed by Charles Darwin, it is also possible to design the visitor's image, as well as a large screen with 700 stuffed butterflies, as well as living species of fish and insects in special aquariums.

cells and the digestive system plays also impressive, not only for interactivity, but also the details related to imperfections and how diseases occur.

To close the ride for this installation, a good suggestion is to listen to the singing of several Brazilian birds in one of the most sought after gadgets of this section.

Inertia, static and kinetic

In the third of the four parts that divide the space pinwheel, named Ingenio, the forces of physics and interactivity reach their apex. Almost everything here can be touched and many of the principles of movement and energy are put to the test in the best way: with hands-on.

There are so many cool things in this section that is difficult to choose the best attractions, but some are already true classics of the place. Systems that generate energy through pedaling and demonstration of the principle of pulley are among the most impressive, and, of course, the very famous globe Van Der Graf, which leaves everyone with hair standing.

The various ways to make soap bubbles should also not fail to be seen: there totems to make it the size of a person, even the small molds with unusual formats, allowing you to even cubes to the mixture.

Problems of modern life

In addition to clarifying a number of issues of science, Cultural Catavento is also concerned with the problems of modernity. The fourth and final installation is called Society, to clarify these issues.

The first subject matter is the environment and sustainability. Be sure to watch the virtual tour in 3D for Rio de Janeiro and check out some of the endangered animals in the panels around the place.

The Nanotechnology space with games related to the theme is also a good choice when you are here. Monitors conduct a real journey by the new findings of the current robotics.

Unlike the previous section, who leads most of the major attractions in this space are the monitors. The space of chemical experiments, the game show with questions about history and the climbing track with interventions of great thinkers deserve attention in this section.

And if visitors are over 13 years, the tour can be complete with a tour of the Prevention room, which warns of the dangers of drugs and also the interactive lecture illustrating the risks of sex without security.