Children have lots of questions about the world; they love animals and want to learn more about their environment. By the time they start school, biology is part of the curriculum. Why not move your class to the museum? Our museum educator offers exciting activities for all age groups, focusing on the plant and animal kingdoms. The topics are aligned with current school curricula. Preschools and school classes from Görlitz get free admission!
Daycare centers and schools
SMNG
Preschool (ages 3–6)
For our youngest visitors, the focus is on marveling, touching, observing, and trying things out. In this way, we aim to foster children’s curiosity and spirit of discovery. You’re welcome to bring your group of children to visit us and go on an adventurous discovery tour—either on your own or with a guide.
You can choose from the following themes (all activities are suitable for children ages 3 to 6):
Carp, rays, snakes, hissing cockroaches, and mice are all bustling about in our vivarium. Live animals from all corners of the world have gathered here so we can tell their stories. During the feeding session that follows, you can see the animals in action.
Duration: 45 minutes
Ages 3 to 6
The natural world of Upper Lusatia is home to many creatures we often know nothing about. Whether dragonflies, rose beetles, or hornets, we uncover the secret lives of insects. Through fun matching games, hands-on larval cases, and wasp nests, we introduce children to the insect kingdom.
For groups of up to 10 children, a themed insect watering trough can be crafted upon request.
Duration: 45–90 minutes
Ages 3 to 6
Following the tracks of badgers, hedgehogs, and other animals, we’ll explore the large and small mammals of Upper Lusatia. With hands-on fur samples, skulls, and footprints, we offer an experience you won’t soon forget. You’ll find us right where wolves and otters say “good night” to each other. After all, not even at the zoo can you get this close to wild animals!
Duration: 45 minutes
Ages 3 to 6
Blackbirds, thrushes, finches, and starlings are probably the best-known bird species (from the children’s song). In addition to these species, great tits, sparrows, and great spotted woodpeckers are, of course, among the birds that children should be familiar with. We’ll examine the animals using the specimens in the exhibits. We’ll focus on their body size, the color of their plumage, and the shape of their beaks. The shape of the beak tells us something about what the animals eat.
Duration: 45 minutes
Ages 3 to 6
Stones are fascinating to children—there’s always a pebble or two rattling around in their pockets. But not all stones are the same. Every type of rock has unique properties. Some are very light, while others are very heavy even though they’re the same size. We want to explore these properties. We’ll pour water on the stones, weigh them, scratch them, and simply admire how colorful they are.
Duration: 45 minutes
Ages 3 to 6
Elementary School (Grades 1–4)
Exploring the museum on your own
Together or in small groups, we’ll use our activity book to embark on a journey of discovery through the diverse world of plants and animals in our Upper Lusatia exhibition.
Duration: 45 to 60 minutes
Our tour themes
Unique in Germany, the Lusatia region is a treasure trove of biodiversity. Like a colorful mosaic, diverse habitats lie side by side: bogs, sand, pine forests, and ponds. The landscape is as varied as its inhabitants. This area is home to particularly rare animals and plants, which you can discover in the exhibition.
Duration: 45 minutes, or optionally as a 90-minute workshop with creative activities
Whether fish, snakes, or frogs, the vivarium is home to many fascinating native and tropical animals. On this guided tour, you’ll get to know them up close.
Duration: 45 minutes
Woodpeckers, blue tits, white-tailed eagles, or goldeneyes—there’s a wide variety of birds to see and admire in their natural habitats here. Together, we’ll explore the differences and similarities among various birds, paying special attention to their beaks.
Duration: 45 minutes
Have you ever wondered what birds do in winter? Because when the days get shorter and it’s cold outside, things often quiet down in the bird world. While blue tits and great tits gather hungrily at feeders, other bird species, like the white stork, migrate to warmer regions. But why do some birds migrate to distant lands, and why do others stay here even in freezing temperatures? Come and find out!
Duration: 45 minutes
Whether munching in the bushes or curled up in the park—everyone knows him, everyone loves him: our hedgehog. He wakes up in the spring and sleeps in the winter. But what does his life look like the rest of the year? Together, we’ll explore whether baby hedgehogs are born with quills, how hedgehogs manage to curl up into a ball, and why, sadly, we see them so rarely in our gardens these days.
Duration: 45 minutes
Stones are hard, soft, colorful, monochromatic, angular, round, warm, cold, rare, valuable, ubiquitous, worthless, rough, smooth, large, or small. They can tell us stories about the Earth’s formation and travel with water and wind. They are used to build houses, to create monuments, and they also play a role in jewelry. Join us on a journey of discovery through the diversity of rocks, because every stone has its own story.
Duration: 45 minutes
Imagine you’re standing in a colorful flower meadow. Everywhere you look, you can hear insects buzzing, chirping, or humming. We’ll find many of them in our exhibition. With hands-on objects, exciting experiments, and fun games, we’ll explore the diversity of this extraordinary group of animals, discover what all insects have in common, and experience the exhibition through the eyes of an insect.
Duration: 45 minutes
The natural world of Upper Lusatia is rich in wildlife, which can be found in its various habitats. Even though we often can’t see the animals themselves, we can still find their traces. Using fur, skulls, eggs, and footprints, we set out on a trail of clues through our exhibition and uncover many a secret. And if you listen closely, you might even spot the “bog ox”…
Duration: 45 minutes
We are also happy to offer guided tours for elementary school classes of our current special exhibitions.
Each year, we present up to six special exhibitions on various natural history topics to our visitors. Some of these are in-house exhibitions created by our exhibition team, which incorporate our extensive collections and research findings. Others are exhibitions from other natural history museums, our partner museums at Leibniz and Senckenberg, or external exhibition organizers.
Workshops
Woodlice, centipedes, spiders, and more – Through various experiments, magnifying glasses, and microscopes, we’ll explore together the diversity of creatures in the leaf litter.
Duration: 90 minutes
Unique in Germany, Lusatia is a treasure trove of biodiversity. Like a colorful mosaic, diverse habitats lie side by side: bogs, sand, pine forests, and ponds. The landscape is as varied as its inhabitants. This region is home to particularly rare animals and plants, which you can discover in the exhibition.
90-minute workshop with creative activities
High School (Grades 5–12)
Subject: Biology
Unique in Germany, Lusatia is a treasure trove of biodiversity. Like a colorful mosaic, diverse habitats lie side by side: bogs, sand, pine forests, and ponds. The landscape is as varied as its inhabitants. This region is home to particularly rare animals and plants, which you can discover in the exhibition.
Duration: 45 minutes, or 90 minutes with a creative activity
The aquatic sections of the vivariums, the marine aquarium, and the large pond offer a wide range of opportunities to observe a diverse array of fish species (saltwater and freshwater species, peaceful and predatory fish). Each of these species exemplifies a unique form of adaptation to its habitat, manifested through specific physical characteristics (catfish, coral fish, freshwater rays), diet, reproduction, and lifestyle.
Type: Exhibition visit
The museum’s vivariums are home to unique species of amphibians and reptiles. Tomato frogs, clawed frogs, black-spotted toads, monitor lizards, royal pythons, basilisks, and chameleons showcase a sample of the diversity of this animal group. By observing their movement and feeding habits, one can identify anatomical features (such as limbs) that provide insights into the behavior and adaptations of amphibians and reptiles.
Building on the knowledge they acquired in elementary school, students learn about additional native species in the exhibition “Animals and Plants of Upper Lusatia.” By observing the different body shapes and sizes (beaks, feet), they can draw conclusions about the animals’ lifestyles. Children can observe altricial birds (such as the marsh harrier) and precocial birds like the crane, gadwall, or mallard, and listen to a variety of different bird calls. Numerous other bird species can be discovered in the “Tropical Rainforest” and “Savanna” exhibits.
The exhibits feature a wide variety of mammal species from Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa. Among them are the platypus, anteater, and sloth, as well as other species that have adapted in various ways to their tropical habitats. Knowledge about species such as otters and wolves, which live in our immediate surroundings and have the potential to conflict with humans, facilitates the development of environmental awareness and an understanding of species conservation. Mammals such as raccoon dogs, raccoons, and muskrats (invasive species), which find ecological niches in the natural ecosystem, can be considered in the context of the issue of “hunting.”
How are fossils formed? What are fossil fuels? And what did Upper Lusatia look like in the age of the dinosaurs? These and many other questions are answered in the exhibition “The Geological History of Upper Lusatia.” After all, to shape our future, we must understand the past.
Meadows owe their existence to human activity and provide habitats for a wide variety of animals and plants. The knowledge gained in Learning Area 1, Fundamentals of Ecology, regarding the characteristics of an ecosystem is applied to the flora and fauna of a meadow.
Type: Museum visit
Apples, tomatoes, and blackberries—all things that wouldn’t exist without insects. Even though they often seem small and insignificant to us, insects play a huge role in our lives. In the exhibition “Animals of Upper Lusatia,” we find not only large mammals and birds but also a wide variety of our six-legged neighbors. You just have to look a little closer.
Each year, we present up to six special exhibitions on various natural history topics to our visitors. Some of these are in-house exhibitions created by our exhibition team, which draw on our extensive collections and research findings. Others are exhibitions from other natural history museums, our partner museums at Leibniz and Senckenberg, or external exhibition organizers.
Exploring the museum on your own
Our exhibition scavenger hunt features worksheets with exciting activities that guide visitors through the exhibition and encourage them to look closely and get involved.
You can pick up the scavenger hunt worksheets for free at the ticket counter.