What is a museum and why we need to visit it?
A museum conserves and exhibit the tradition, customs and heritage of a country. From a field trip to a museum, we can learn important concepts that derived from history, tradition, customs, persons, art and cultures.
Few facts about Bangladesh National Museum:
Location: It is located on the South side of Bangabondhu Sheikh Muzib Medical University at Shahbag area in the Capital city Dhaka. It was founded in 1913 by the British Governor of Bengal. It is a four storey building with 46 galleries; have an extensive collection of artifacts.
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| Ready to leave school premises |
The museum premises is surrounded by different types of trees. On both sides of the entrance of the building there are two historical canons. Just after entering into the 4 storied building, you can see the aesthetic Novera sculpture.
It was Saturday, so we noticed that few more schools were there to visit 'National Museum'.
Learning goals for museum visit:
For early years: Bangladesh map in an interactive way by watching a really big map. As we have started learn 'mapping' in our Geography and Bangladesh Studies classes starting from early years, this field trip was very important to all of us. Learning about our plants, animals, birds, fruits, flowers and creepers was another part of not only Bangladesh studies but helpful in related science or Geography studies. Another aspect of learning was to increase the volume of our vocabulary by knowing the names of all these things in Banglas and English.
For other elder class students 'this field trip was meant to learn about Bangladesh by knowing about rocks/ minerals, tribal/ village life, and potteries.' Student felt it bad as we were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum. Only way was to take notes.
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| We had to wait at outside of the Museum building as the opening time of museum was 9.30am and we reached there earlier than that time. |
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| On the right side wall of the ground floor we saw few clocks showing different times of different cities of the world. |
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| It is the only picture which I took from museum site.
1st floor: The 1st floor is divided into 22 rooms. The first room displays a large map showing the map of Bangladesh and its 64 districts.
In next few rooms we could see the trees, animals, tribal life, rocks, minerals, the Sunder bans and various coins and architectures of ancient ages.
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There were rooms showcasing rocks and minerals found in Bangladesh. Plants, flowers, fruits, creepers, animals, birds were in various rooms.There are some historic relics of Bengal up to 1900. There is a room which shows the different boats used by the rural people.
Tribes of Bangladesh was also the focus of learning.
Arabic and Persian inscriptions, the pieces of calligraphy were the most major objects to watch as I have an interest for calligraphy. We also can learn the history and chronology of medieval eastern India when we observe the coin cabinet.
We didn't visit the 2nd and 3rd floor as our learning goals were fulfilled by visiting one floor only. Another reason was that only one floor is so big that our young students felt exhausted after one hour of walking around large 22 rooms.
When coming back and before taking a riksha, I decide to walk along the road. The first view which grabbed my attention was the poster of 'Humayun Ahmed's book exhibition' in front of 'Public Library' gate. I walked along the pavement for few more minutes, as I wanted to observe the culture and social environment around Shahbagh. I think you need to walk around the adjacent roads and streets to discover and learn more about our society, culture and art.
Shahbag is the location of the nation's leading educational and public institutions, including the University of Dhaka, the oldest and largest public university in Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU), and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, the largest public university for technological studies in the country.
Shahbag hosts many street markets and bazaars. Shahbag area has also become a venue for celebrating major festivals, such as the Bengali New Year and Basanta Utsab.
I think you are right about exploring the surrounding area. Nice to read about the things you saw!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, but I would be happy to know your name.
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