The Nature Park & Galleries, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Nature Park & Galleries (NPG; Hebrew: שדרות טבע וגלריות), is the “open-air campus museum” of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, located on the University's Edmund J. Safra Science Campus in Jerusalem, Israel.

Visitors exploring the Plant Evolution Garden at NPG.

Overview

“The Nature Park and Galleries” is an open-air museum residing in the Edmund J. Safra campus of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The museum was conceived and founded in 2003 by Prof. Jeff Camhi (Kimchi), and it offers people of all ages a wide range of experiences relating to Israeli natural history, science and research. At first, the museum was called the “Nature and Discovery Museum”

The museum spans from the campus’ main entrance to its far end. Along the way are explanatory signs, which allow for independent visits, and indeed the museum can be visited for free every day of the week. Most of the museum’s exhibits are wheelchair-accessible.

A box at the entrance to the campus contains paper guides, in English and in Hebrew, which lead visitors, via the museum’s various exhibits, to other special locations around the campus.

The park is home to a wide range of flora and fauna and can thus be considered an ecological park, conserving the wildlife that resides there. On the western side of the park is a row of buildings belonging to a few university departments, with display windows showing zoological and botanical specimens.

History and operation

Established in 2003, NPG shares the University's knowledge and ideas with the public. 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 and carries out its own fund raising.

The Nature Park & Galleries opened to the public in August 2003. 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, the National Library of Israel, the Albert Einstein Archive, the Magnes Press, 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. 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.

NPG functions as a unit of the Hebrew University's Authority for Community and Youth, but carries out its own fund-raising.

Exhibits

The Nature Park and Galleries outdoors museum of nature and science presents six permanent exhibits:

A part of the Bird Migration Walk exhibition.

• The Discovery Tree Walk: Fifty trees from different habitats all around the world are presented by interactive signs explaining their botanical, historical, and folkloric signifcance. This includes a slice taken from the trunk of a fallen 2000-year-old Giant Sequoia tree from California. It stands besides Israel's oldest living Sequoia tree.
• 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. Explanatory signs give each bird's English, Hebrew and scientific name.
• Plant Evolution Garden: In this 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.

A part of the Ecology Boardwalk.

• Bridging the Sciences: This indoor exhibit presents various scientific disciplines, and how scientists who bridge the differences between them can reach important scientific achievements. The Hebrew University's science faculty is featured.
• Order-in-Nature Boardwalk: This walkway takes you through a pine grove where you can find peaceful corners, enjoy a rich variety of wild plants, and learn from the signage how nature, though seemingly disorderly, in fact has its own order.
• Wildflower Boardwalk: This promenade courses through a spectacular bloom of many floral species through winter and spring. The signage offers explanations, riddles, and thought-provoking questions in natural science.

Publications

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).
• Yoav Motro and Jeff Camhi, "Fifty Bird Tales: A Guide to the Walton Avenue Foundation Bird Migration Trail of the Edmond J. Safra Campus, Givat Ram" (Jerusalem: Nature Park & Galleries, in preparation).

NPG carries out research on how universities can enhance their outreach to the public, and how their guides can enhance visitor interest using new communicative skills:

• Jeff Camhi, Dam in the River: Releasing the Flow of University Ideas (New York: Algora Publications, 2013).
• Jeff Camhi, “Pathways for communicating about objects on guided tours.” Curator: The Museum Journal 51(3): 2008, 277–296.
• Dina Tsybulskaya and Jeff Camhi, “Accessing and incorporating visitors’ entrance narratives in guided museum tours.” Curator: The Museum Journal 52(1): 2009, 81–100.
• Jeff Camhi, Dina Tsybulskaya and Jeff Dodick, "An ‘open campus museum’ for sharing science with the public.” International Journal of Science in Society 4(4): 2013, 101–108.

External links

• NPG official website