story and photos by Kayte Deioma
On a rainy day in Dusseldorf, you could take the kids to the Aquazoo, but if you’re this close to the Neander Valley, it’s worth taking a half hour detour out of town to the Neanderthal Museum near Mettman, where the original Neanderthal Man was discovered in 1856.
A couple quarrymen found the bones in a cave where they were mining limestone. After the most obvious human remains were removed, the digging continued and the site was buried under tons of gravel, its exact location forgotten. The Neanderthal bones made their way to the Rhine Province Museum in Bonn in 1877, but in 1937 a small Pre-History Museum was opened near the location of the original discovery. It went through various incarnations until a brand new building was opened in 1996 on a nearby site.
In 1997, archaeologists once again uncovered the original site. In 1997 and 2000 they recovered more bone fragments that matched the 1856 male skeleton, as well as additional remains of a woman and child. These original artifacts, along with replicas of the 1856 discoveries, are on display in the museum.
For its 10-year anniversary in 2006, the museum’s permanent exhibit was completely redone, using state-of-the-art technology to create the most accurate depictions yet of what Neanderthal man, woman and child most likely looked like and how they lived.
Neanderthal Man is not the only focus of the museum. The oval glass building in the woods houses the history of man’s evolution from 
4 million years ago in Africa through today. You proceed from the lower level up a spiraling ramp through time. Themed exhibits includeLiving and Surviving, Tools and Knowledge, Myths and Religion, Nutrition and Environment, and Communication and Society.
Although the whole timeline is covered, you actually start with the Neanderthal discoveries on the first level. Original bone fragments are laid out into the Neanderthal Man’s skeleton. Life 
size models of Neanderthal men and women wouldn’t stand out too much in a crowd of modern-day humans.
Big black Forscherboxes (research boxes) provide lots of compartments and drawers for curious visitors to open, revealing more artifacts, documents and research tools of archaeologists and forensic anthropologists. On the back side of each Forscherbox, computer touch screens provide an additional opportunity for further investigation on the subject, if you happen to speak German.
An audio exhibit of giant ears challenges the listener to imagine what cold or a cloud sounds like. To recreate the sensation of being in a grotto, you can stick your head up inside a cave-simulator suspended from the ceiling and look at cave 
paintings projected on the walls. Kids will be tempted to climb up inside the cave-simulator, but don’t let them. The whole thing is hanging on a few screws and isn’t designed to hold weight.
Comparisons of Neanderthal man’s bones with modern man’s bones, shows that he was physically stronger than his modern-day counterpart. A side-by-side presentation of our
fur-clad ancestor with an Adidas-adorned 21st century German illustrates the relative strength of the two.
On the upper level is an interesting technology timeline. It shows the progression of technology from a fire flint to a Bic lighter; from a basic bore to a power drill, from a primitive needle and thread to a sewing machine. You can also see the present and future of human evolution with prosthetic limbs and other mechanical replacement parts for the body in use today.
If it’s not raining too hard, or if you brought along your rain<
poncho and umbrella, like I did, you can visit the outdoor exhibits. In 2002, three trails were officially added to the museum presentation. The first, marked by green cubes, is theDiscovery Site. It is the shortest trail, just under a quarter mile from the museum. It is the only one on the same side of the street, heading to the right out the front door. The paved trail takes you along the Duessel River to the spot where the bones were found in 1856 and again in 1997 and 2000.
The cave has long since been reduced to quarry dust, and the site on the bank of the river has been replanted with grass and trees, although quarry work continues just over the hill. The Discovery Site (Fundstelle) is marked with red poles and surrounded by concrete crosses with text panels in the middle and plugs for your audio guide. I didn’t realize the audio trail continued outdoors, so I had already turned mine in, but I don’t think I would have wanted to plug in to a wet outlet anyway. The Discovery Site is a limited access area included with museum admission.
Across the street from the museum, two additional trails are marked out with red and yellow cubes. The yellow cubes mark the Menschenspuren (Human Traces) Trail, which leads to a series of sculptures on prehistoric themes by international artists. At the far end of this loop trail is the Game Reserve, with animals such as brumbies, wisents and aurochs that have been bred to be a close approximation of their ice age counterparts. It is recommended that you allow at least 90 minutes to complete the loop trail. The Human Traces Trail and Game Reserve are open access areas that do not require museum admission and are not restricted to museum hours.
The red cubes lead to the Steinzeit Werkstatt (Stone Age Workshop), also along the loop trail, where workshops and demonstrations are conducted in pre-historic skills. Pre-registration is required for activities at the Stone Age Workshop.
Information panels are in German and English, and there is an English version of the audio guide included with admission. The audio guide is a headset with a cord that you can plug into selected exhibits you want to hear more about. If your kids happen to speak German, there is a special audio guide for kids that is currently only in German. Outlets for the children’s recording are marked with a sticker. If your kids don’t speak German, the adult English version is fine for kids too. In addition to the audio guides, English tours can be arranged with advance notice for an additional fee.
The Neanderthal Museum
Talstr. 300
40822 Mettmann
Phone: (49) (2104) 979715
Fax: (49) (2104) 979724
www.neanderthal.de
The great thing about exploring children’s museums around the country and around the world is that I get to see how each city puts their own flavor on the play and learn experience. Designed for ages one to eleven, theLouisiana Children’s Museum in New Orleans has some universal favorites like the Kids’ Café where youngsters can cook up pretend food and serve it to their friends or parents. There’s the ever-popular Little Sav-a-Center where kids can shop, run the cash register or stock the shelves. There is also the requisite opportunity to dress up as a fire fighter or police officer and learn about safety issues.
What makes the Louisiana Children’s Museum unique to its home town is the Little Port of New Orleans, where little stevedores can use a gantry crane to load and unload cargo from a barge. Captains can pilot a tow boat down the Mississippi. Ship’s mates can whip up a pretend meal in a cruise ship galley. An interactive wall map lights up to show the different routes that cargo travels to and from the Port of New Orleans.
Other exhibits include Body Works, addressing physical fitness and how the body works. You can ride a bike with Mr. Bones, a skeleton that pedals along with you and demonstrates how your bones move when you ride. Measure your height in a magic doorway. Climb a rock wall. Test your balance on the balancing board. Lift 500 pounds with a lever, or lift yourself up with a pulley.
It’s rare to find a venue that can hold the attention of the younger kids in the family and the teenagers at the same time. The Zeum in San Francisco does this brilliantly and mom and dad can get in on the act too. Billed as a multimedia arts and technology museum, Zeum gets everyone’s creative juices flowing with opportunities to learn about video production and animation by creating your own productions from 
scratch using all the professional tools of the trade.
The rest of the Main Gallery has the components of a live Video Production on one side of the room and basic elements of animation on the other side. To produce a short video you can pick your own starting point. Some people like to get right to the heart of the 
matter by typing a script into the teleprompter, so they know what kind of costumes to look for when they head to wardrobe. Others like to start in the wardrobe department to see what characters they can create and then write them a suitable storyline. There are costumes for young children up to adults, so the whole family can get involved. If you’d like to make a horror film, you can settle into the mask-making department and create your own masks.
No film is complete without its musical soundtrack. You can compose yours in the Sound Lab. You don’t have to be working on a video project to use the Sound Lab. You can also use it to compose a song to perform, or to take home with you.
at the Tech Table; otherwise the staff technician will do that for you. For a small donation, your video production will be saved onto a DVD for you to take home.
simple animations by moving objects around on a white table and taking photos of them with a camera mounted above or in front of the table. Another station is stocked with plastic dinosaurs and other creatures that you can use to create an animation. All of these animation
projects follow the same principle of using a series of still photographs of objects in different positions to create the impression of motion.
You could spend all day and never leave the primary production areas downstairs, but there’s more to do upstairs. The stairway circles around the Roundabout, where you’ll find the MetaField Maze, a virtual board game projected on the floor. You use your weight to tip the virtual play board and move a marble of light around the maze without letting it fall into a black hole. Tip: It helps to read the directions.
from Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to pop favorites. Again you can don costumes, choose your digital background and take your music video home with you.
manipulation, was closed on our visit, but a Build a ‘Bot Workshop was going on in the classroom next door. Artist and robot inventor Simone Davalos demonstrated how to build a robot that would mix syrup and carbonated water to make soda. Kids and adults were fascinated with her demonstration of computer programming using the process of making a peanut butter sandwich to illustrate how to give a robot instructions.
The 100-year-old Zeum Carousel, built in 1906 spent time in Seattle, New Mexico and 15 years in Long Beach, CA before returning to San Francisco in 1998. Its giraffes, camels, goats and horses have all been meticulously restored and look like new. One ticket will get you two rides on the merry-go-round.