Shanghai Natural History Museum

"Shenling Wonderland - Dialogue between Nature and the Universe XR Immersive Science Popularization Experience Activity" is an immersive science popularization research project created by the Shanghai Natural History Museum in collaboration with the Shanghai Astronomy Museum and Shanghai Institute of Computing Technology Co., Ltd. With the theme of "Nature, Humanity, and Harmony," it integrates XR technology with natural science education, aiming to cultivate teenagers' scientific inquiry spirit, innovative thinking, and ecological protection awareness through a "learning by playing, learning by doing" model. This activity takes "natural evolution" and "cosmic exploration" as its core main lines, combining the four permanent exhibition halls of the Shanghai Natural History Museum: "Mysteries of Origin," "River of Life," "Ecological Panorama," and "Colorful Life," to embark on an exciting adventure of natural science. The XR research activity revolves around "two major thematic areas," integrating interactive experiments, role-playing, scientific inquiry, and other links, balancing fun and knowledge. Through XR technology, it recreates the origin of the universe, the evolution of life, and Jurassic ecological scenes, allowing teenagers to understand natural laws and experience the miracle of life in an immersive experience, achieving the science popularization education goal of "perception is learning."

The Shanghai Natural History Museum is located in Jing'an Sculpture Park, and the building resembles a "green snail" with a unique appearance. The new museum now displays tens of thousands of specimens and collections, rich in content, especially a striking skeleton of a Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, about 26 meters long.

The Shanghai Natural History Museum has five floors, 2 above ground and 3 underground. Visitors usually start from the second floor above ground and proceed downwards. The entire visit takes about half a day to a full day, so please manage your energy, as the exhibitions on the final second underground floor are extensive. The museum has 10 permanent exhibitions, divided into three systems: natural evolution, life environment, and human civilization.

The "Mysteries of Origin" exhibition hall on the second floor takes the human exploration of the universe as its main line, displaying models of astronomical telescopes from ancient times to the present, as well as graphic and textual introductions to astronomical knowledge. In a theater in a corner of the exhibition hall, visitors can also watch a 3D short film about meteorites.

The "River of Life" exhibition hall on the first floor classifies and displays a large number of animal specimens such as snakes, monkeys, and peacocks. A giant Mamenchisaurus model roars and twists its neck, looking exceptionally lifelike. You can experience the natural exhibition area, observe live butterflies, chameleons, jellyfish, and other animals up close through transparent display cases; going to the sea touch pool, you can also personally touch marine creatures such as starfish, sea cucumbers, and sea anemones, which is a very rare experience.

The "Path of Evolution" (first underground floor) presents visitors with the entire lineage from the Cambrian explosion of life to the appearance of humans, with a wide variety of animal bones and fossils. Here, you can not only see a wide variety of dinosaur fossils, but when you open the official "Augmented Reality" APP of the Shanghai Natural History Museum and point it at the skeleton of a Lufengosaurus as prompted, two 3D Lufengosaurus, one large and one small, will appear on the screen, running towards you, seemingly wanting to jump out of the screen to greet you, which is very cute. Dinosaur lovers should not miss it.

The second underground floor is the richest in content in the entire Shanghai Natural History Museum, including 5 themes such as wisdom of survival, exploration of the earth, and colorful life. If you look at this floor carefully, it will take a lot of time and energy. It is recommended to choose the most exciting parts for a focused visit. The "Ecological Panorama" area uses animal specimens and model props to recreate the ecological scene of the African savanna in a 1:1 ratio: on the vast African savanna, giraffes and hippos are strolling leisurely, gazelles are fleeing pursuit, and a group of lions are enjoying a sunbath, much like watching "Animal World"; in the "Colorful Life" exhibition area, the "butterfly wing painting" made of 1200 butterfly wings always attracts visitors to take photos; the exploration center is very popular with children, where they can experience the sense of accomplishment of digging fossils by hand. Friends traveling with children should not miss it (on-site advance reservation required).

After the visit, you might want to go to the souvenir shop to buy some small souvenirs, such as arctic fox dolls, mugs with elephant head handles, amber encapsulating complete insects, etc., which are very cute in shape. Most of these dolls are priced above one hundred yuan. Although the price is a bit high, they are worth the money. There is a restaurant on the right side of the "Mysteries of Origin" on the second floor, and a small cafe on the second underground floor. If you are tired from walking, you can go there to eat something, and the food prices are relatively moderate.