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Friday, March 29th  
An exhibition on scary little animals

An exhibition on scary little animals
Last sunday (yes it has been a busy week) we visited the Natural History museum in Leiden. There was a christmas lecture organised by the Darwin centre. I was surprised to see how well the kids stayed quiet during the lecture on evolution and especially, human opinion on evolution. They even picked up the odd bits of information on the way, for example on the devil's forests in the Amazon.

The highlight of the day was an extremely good exhibition on scary animals. There were all sorts of things both adults and children could do. Using simple technology visitors created something of their own. And of course this is what human beings want: something of their own to take home (even though you will look at it for a week and then throw it away. The exhibition also reminded me of the value of sensory perception. You could do more than read: you could smell, feel, watch ants in real life and watch a cheese burger go mouldy. You could even clamber up a wall like a fly, with wings of course ;-)

Finally you could photograph a mite (see photograph) and send it to your email. Such a simple cheap trick, but it works a treat.