Eden Project in Cornwall, England

Several friends and colleagues recommended a visit to the Eden Project, not so much as a traditional science center, but as a place where science is all around and just waiting to be discovered. It was well worth the effort (which included renting a car and taking a self-taught crash course in driving on the left side of the road).














Eden is a product of the Millennium Commission, which financed the project as a way to bring more people into a region that had become depressed following the closing of most of the mines in the 1960s and 70s. It is constructed in an old pit from which China clay was mined. The facility might be described as a botanical garden with a strong message of sustainable development woven throughout its exhibits, which include thousands of species of plants and numerous exhibits on our use of plants It has two biomes (see photo). The left one, which is the largest conservatory in the world, houses tropical plants, while the right one houses plants found in Mediterranean and Californian regions.

The displays are thought-provoking, with many opportunities to see frequently used plants we rarely see - how often do we get the chance to see coffee, sugar, tea, rice, cotton, or hemp (shown here) plants growing? - as well as learn more about the people who grow them.












Other indoor displays in a building called “The Core” include curio-type cabinets with figures and messages to think about; a wall of refrigerator doors to write magnetic poetry on; a tree of cycles, with disks depicting the water, carbon, nitrogen, and other cycles.

















Many of these displays have messages that provide information and/or thought-provoking questions but (purposefully) stop short of advocating what to do. The educational philosophy of Eden is to inspire people to think on their own, given information and questions.















This was one of the many specialty gardens at Eden and my personal favorite. In this case, staff surveyed a number of people to see what they would like to have and then went ahead and built it.

In the center of The Core is a seed, carved from a single block of granite, which serves as a reminder of Eden's message about sustainability for living things. It looks much like a pine cone and weighs in at 70 tons. The Queen dedicated it.

A few other exhibits have been added to appeal to teens, including a dance mat (with an ecological theme), a shooting gallery (in which species lost cause other changes in the food chain) and a series of old cars in which Elvis takes riders through a virtual tour around the world in search of the right ingredients a pizza: at the end, visitors find that the ingredients have traveled some 24,000 km to get to their table.

One popular activity for young visitors is a treasure hunt called the cake challenge. Visitors must find all the ingredients for a cake somewhere at Eden and then they receive an actual baked cake. In the process, they reach many different parts of Eden and learn more about the diversity of plants needed even to make something as common as a cake.

Things are big, bold, spectacular, colorful, and decidedly on-message. Food service, for example, (which is everywhere - 9 different eating venues), promotes messages of nutrition, local sourcing, and minimal packaging. Even the tables at Eden all have a message. Everyone on the staff we met really walked the talk and seemed decidedly committed to the mission. One of the head curators was out on the floor in jeans on Sunday as an explainer, talking with visitors about the next big project: a desert biome called "The Edge."

The core message is clear - Eden hopes its 1.2 million visitors will increase their appreciation for the interconnectedness of everything and grow more curious about (and question) the impact of our activities on the world, its ecosystems, and its people. Everything here supports the message, even the hand driers in the restrooms. The device shown here really works - drawing your hands slowly out for only 5 seconds leaves your hands totally dry, with no paper.

The response has been remarkably positive. Eden appears to be one of the few financially successful edutainment venues that relies almost entirely on earned income, and yet it has resources for doing everything according to the highest standards of sustainability, exceptional maintenance, and investment in new facilities. At the same time, it is sponsoring more than a dozen major outreach projects in developing countries throughout the world. Described here are only 2 of the many.