Educational tours take students to new places and give them different perspectives on their subjects. Inspirational school visits to Moscow and St Petersburg are an opportunity for students to learn about the development of several branches of science in another country, as well as getting a Russian vantage on global science history. Highlights of science tours to Russia include the Moscow Zoo and the State Darwin Museum in Moscow, the Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology and the Arctic and Antarctic Museum in St Petersburg.
Moscow: Moscow Zoo
Moscow Zoo is a valuable addition to the itinerary for inspirational school visits to Russia. It gives students the chance to understand more about biological diversity in an institution with over 6,000 animals (representing about 1,000 species) housed in 21.5 hectares of land. The zoo carries out research on animal behaviour, feeding and reproduction, and has an endangered species breeding program.
Moscow: State Darwin Museum
Students can continue learning about the natural world by visiting the State Darwin Museum in Moscow. It was the world’s first museum to focus on evolution. Its 400,000 items on display cover subjects such as zoogeography, macroevolution, ethology, microevolution, biological diversity, the history of the museum and the history of nature cognition (i.e. the history of scientific thought concerning the natural world). It is an impressively large museum with plenty of interactive resources for science students. A visit here also offers the unexpected experience of a ride on a submarine to a hydrothermal community.
St Petersburg: The Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology
From the early days of space exploration, through the space race and into the present day, the Soviet Union and Russia have been critical participants. Students going abroad to Russia on inspirational school visits can visit a unique museum: the Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology, housed in buildings that were used by the Soviet Union in the 1930s for one of the country’s first rocket research facilities. In the museum, important objects from the history of space technology in Russia are on display, including cosmonaut space suits, a Soviet era re-entry capsule and historic rocket engines.
St Petersburg: The Arctic and Antarctic Museum
The Arctic and Antarctic Museum is a fascinating stop for science students on inspirational school visits to Russia. Part of the Soviet Union’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, it was founded in the 1930s. It is the largest museum in the world to showcase the technology and history of exploration in polar regions, with a wide variety of exhibits: objects made of bones from Uelen, the history of navigation in the North Sea Route, the natural environments of the Antarctic and the Arctic, Russian polar aviation in the years from 1930 to 1950, and more.
