Guide
The Hasan Ali Yücel Children's Museum in Edirne was designed to teach visitors about life on earth from its beginnings and about how technology has drawn on nature. Its sections follow the national education curriculum, and it works on an interactive principle. It stands on a campus of twelve thousand square metres in the Şükrüpaşa quarter and holds models of a great many animals, from ants to dinosaurs. It is named after Hasan Ali Yücel, a former minister of education.
The museum was founded by the Edirne municipality on open green ground in the middle of the city and opened on 29 October 2018, the ninety-fifth anniversary of the republic. It went into general refurbishment in April 2021 and was closed for a time both for that work and because of the COVID-19 pandemic; a new area called the science and art workshop was added in the meantime, and the museum opened again on 1 June 2021.
In September 2021 the campus was given the status of a private museum by decision of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Visitor numbers reached a hundred thousand in 2022, and since it was founded the museum has hosted science and children's festivals.
Of the twelve thousand square metres of the campus, 4,500 are given over to green space. Besides a ticket office, a first-aid room, a screening room, a cafeteria, a photography and souvenir shop and a room for the instructors, four areas were designed for the teaching programmes: veterinary work and affection, wildlife and helpfulness, the environment and respect, and traffic and tolerance.
The sections are classed by colour as the green, blue and yellow areas. The green area holds the ice island, the palaeontology island, the entomology island and the science island. The blue area holds the displays on the environment and respect and on traffic and tolerance, and the yellow area those on veterinary work and affection and on wildlife and helpfulness.
The museum has prepared a space where children of four to seven and of seven to twelve can learn and investigate for themselves, with a programme meant to develop their creativity, and play workshops are held at weekends.
