Museu de Ciencia e Tecnica da Escola de Minas/UFOP, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil

4RMFglobal 5:00 PM Jun 25, 2012

Atmospheric building and compelling exhibits
The Museu de Ciencia e Tecnica da Escola de Minas/UFOP is worth a visit if you are in Ouro Preto. The museum is housed in an aging school, some of which is being renovated, and I found the building's slightly run-down atmosphere to be interesting in itself. The exhibits are even more compelling, and there are a *lot* of them. It starts with the formation of the earth (this part has a number of fossils), then gets into minerals and how people have extracted them over time (with a huge number of rocks on display and a lot of maquettes of mining equipment), then explains how different minerals are processed and used in our daily lives (it's surprisingly interesting to see the raw mineral next to the products they become), and eventually moves into science and physics (the science section is bland but the physics section has a lot of hands-on displays like kaleidoscopes and circuits that are fun to play with). One major warning - while an admirable amount of the displays have been translated into English and French (no Spanish), there is still a *lot* of text, maybe 75%, that is only in Portuguese. If you don't speak Portuguese, to get the most out of this museum, go with a friend or maybe try to get one of the students who work there to explain some of the highlights to you. I did see guides giving tours to groups of local schoolkids, so I imagine you can probably arrange a guided visit in advance with an English speaker. Note that many visitors will be coming from Belo Horizonte, in which case there is a good chance you visited the Museu das Minas e do Metal (which is excellent). If so, you will notice a lot of overlap with the rock and gem samples, so for those sections you can probably walk a bit faster. Also note that you cannot take any photographs in the museum, which is a major disappointment, because there were a lot of visually-interesting displays. In fact, like many other museums in Ouro Preto, you need to leave your bag in a locker at the entrance. As I mentioned, there is a *lot* to see here. Don't count on spending less than an hour here if you want to see everything, and consider blocking off 1.5 to 2 hours just to be safe.

4Danihorowitz 5:00 PM Jul 20, 2014

Gemstones....gemstones...gemstones!!!
This is a very interesting place to go and explore with, or without, your kids!!! The “dark room” with all the gems is truly amazing. I would only suggest more panels with explanations to make it even more educative.