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New galleries opening at Bio Museum

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Posted 19/05/2019

Two new galleries of Panama’s BioMuseo (Museum of Biodiversity) will be inaugurated on Thursday, May 22 and open to the public the next day.

The unique and innovative museum has become   a popular destination for residents and visitors with various areas dedicated to science and the biodiversity of the planet.

Admission is $10  for  adults, and $5 for  students, minors up to 6 years and retirees  The museum is free on the first weekend  each month

The hours are from Tuesday to Sunday 10 am to 4 pm and on weekends the box office closes at 5 pm.

 

https://www.newsroompanama.com/events/new-galleries-opening-at-bio-museum

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We went to the museum on one of our PC trips, it is really interesting and well- worth a visit. It would also benefit from more publicity, generally! 

 

 

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Terrific article on Frank Gehry, the designer of the BioMuseum, and how he’s helping kids open their minds. He loves this work and recently celebrated his 90th birthday by engaging with students.

Uploaded: Wed, May 22, 2019, 9:40 am

World-famous architect Frank Gehry helps East Palo Alto students imagine future cities

Fourth-graders learn about architecture from man who helped design Walt Disney Concert Hall, Facebook campus

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Architect Frank Gehry adm ... (More)

by Christian Trujano / Palo Alto Weekly 

3 comments. See comments.

World-famous architect Frank Gehry brought the same concepts he has used with teams to design renowned buildings, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, to an East Palo Alto classroom on Tuesday afternoon.

Fourth-graders at Costaño Elementary School had the chance to design and model their own city filled with a stadium, courthouses, a chicken restaurant and more, through the guidance of Frank Gehry. The special afternoon visit was sponsored by Turnaround Arts: California, a nonprofit co-founded by Gehry, as well as Facebook. The program helps integrate the arts in the nations highest-needs schools. Costaño has worked with the nonprofit since 2016. 

Using cardboard boxes, wood and plastic, the children worked in teams to build their own cities with skyscrapers, courthouses and stadiums -- an activity intended to help them build confidence and critical-thinking skills.

After each team finished its project, members assembled it all together in a center table where they explained their cityscapes: schools, hospitals and other buildings inspired by Gehry and his mentorship.

"You could really build that, that could really be built," Gehry said, telling the students they could find future job opportunities with him. Their excitement filled the room, as they showed off their creations and shouted over each other to get Ghery's attention.

Costaño Elementary was an underperforming school up until three years ago, when they first enrolled with Turnaround Arts, according to Principal Viviana Espinosa. She said the school is more than just a lot of homeless children, who make up about 60% of the student population. They are a community that wants integration and to have their voices heard.

"These kids bring so much to the table," Espinosa said. "In giving them this opportunity to process the world differently, to have their voices be heard and to show them how to do it in a productive way, it's powerful."

"We started to realize that arts education was really only happening in rich schools and private school," Malissa Shriver, president and co-founder of Turnaround Arts said about when she first spoke to Gehry about starting this project.

"The poorest kids who really benefit the most are getting the least."

Both Espinosa and Shriver felt visual arts is the most engaging content and can be easily integrated with other curriculum such as math or English.

"For kids who don't have English as their first language, they live in extreme poverty, live with a lot of stress such as homelessness and incarcerated parents. They need this more than anybody," Shriver said.

Angela Karamian, the visual arts teacher at Costaño, said she supports the goals of the program: integrating arts education in the classroom, climate and culture in the school campus and engaging families and the community.

"The kids that come here, there's a lot of tragic circumstances that they have to go through and they have to come to school, they bring all of that stuff with them," Karamian said.

"We always think of this (as) a place where they can come and it’s healing, it's affirming who they are and we try to make them proud of who they are."

Bill Correll, a makerspace teacher, said integrating art with other curriculum such as STEM helps people realize the practicality of the theories and helps stimulate the kids critical-thinking skills.

"I think that it makes science, engineering and math more practical as opposed to something that is theoretical and book-centric," Correll said.

Gehry said he was always interested in schools with children lacking an interest in education.

"Those are the schools in need," Gehry said. "They drop out because they're bored with the teaching."

Gehry said if you get kids to build makeshift cities such as they did in the class, you can teach them how to calculate areas of buildings, or teaching them about politics and how city management works.

"They're pretty engaged right now because they’re making stuff," Gehry said. "They understand there’s more to life." 

He pointed out the pride in the face of one of the children working on her building, reflecting his own pride in seeing how dedicated the class was to their creations.

"It's going to inspire me," Gehry said.

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Doorways to Panama's history

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Panama's bio-diversity museum

Posted 29/05/2019

In 2019 we celebrate the 500 years of foundation of the city of Panama. This commemoration has been the best pretext to launch a revolutionary cultural initiative: the City Museum. This proposal consists of taking the exhibitions to the street, to different parts of the city of Panama, and eventually, to the interior of the Republic, to interact in a living way with the landscape and the citizen life. Thus, various exhibitions will explain the evolution of the indigenous urban settlement that existed a thousand years before the arrival of the Spaniards, to the confusing, conflictive and kaleidoscopic city that we have today. In a country where culture has not been a priority, the last week witnessed the inauguration of the Museum of Freedom and Human Rights, later of the opening of the last pavilions of the Museum of the Biodiversity, and now, the launching of the Museum of the City in its first location, the majestic building of the National Archives. Panamanians have a duty to support these projects to demonstrate to our own and strangers our thirst for art and culture, steps necessary for a better society – LA PRENSA, May 29.

 

https://www.newsroompanama.com/events/doorways-to-panama039s-history-1

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Amador landfill project threatens Biomuseo icon

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Posted 23/04/2022

 A new landfill in Amador threatens the Biomuseo's place as a visible icon of the country's biodiversity, its mission to protect it and its value as a world-class tourist destination says an Amador Foundation statement.

Gilda de Ferrer, a member of the board of directors, recalled that the famous Canadian architect Frank Gehry designed the Biomuseo, with the commitment that it occupies a prominent place at the entrance to the Panama Canal.

This is the only work by Gehry in Latin America and the only museum of biodiversity on the entire continent. For de Ferrer, if they do that filling, the museum would lose all its importance and architectural characteristic as The museum is a great sculpture for all who enter the Canal to appreciate. The project whatever it is goes against everything that is conservation and should be rejected,” she stated.

In addition, he considers that this megaproject would forever change the geographical configuration of the road and would take away its historical, environmental and social value.

"The fact that this museum exists in Panama is incredible and it was built with the support of four successive governments, a state project widely supported by its mission to protect our biodiversity," he said.

In this context, it is considered that the State has the responsibility to safeguard this large investment, which is greater than $100 million, in the face of threats such as the landfill.

According to the environmental impact study, the landfill will be fitted out for plazas, a theme park, a public beach, hotels, leisure and business areas, and two marinas. The project is called Desarrollo Marítimo Amador and the promoter is the company LGS Panama Tourism Development, SA The company has a concession for the use of the sea in process with the Panama Maritime Authority.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/amador-landfill-project-threatens-biomuseo-icon

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