A preview of the The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History

We took a train into Tel Aviv to visit the museum during its trial phase. Here’s an explanation about this from the museum’s website:

The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History in Tel Aviv, located adjacent to Tel Aviv University, will open fully this upcoming September.

As of July 2, the museum has been open for a trial run to test crowd flow and to get feedback on the exhibits, according to Professor Tamar Dayan, the Museum’s chair.
“For the trial run, we open for about four hours a day and we limit the number of visitors because we first want to finish the exhibitions properly and then we want to work out any kinks there may be,” Professor Dayan said.

The museum houses over five and a half million specimen.

My wife, Gina, booked tickets a few weeks ago. We arrived around 11:30 for the afternoon round of visitors.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

The museum’s exhibits are spread over three levels (there’s a fourth planned, I believe), and it’s a terrific explanation of Israel’s ecology, and natural history. Each section is themed, with explanations in Hebrew, English, and Arabic.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

One of the more interesting exhibits is on the third floor. It’s inspired by how birds construct their nests. At least, that’s what I understood from this one. It didn’t seem to have English explanations of several aspects of the exhibit.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We visited the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History today. It opened fairly recently, and it’s well worth the visit if you’re interested in natural history, generally, and Israeli ecology, in particular.

We took our own lunch. There’s a deck with both outdoor and indoor seating where you can sit, and eat as you make your way through the exhibits.

The museum is really well thought out. The exhibits are fascinating, and I like how they’re put together. Our kids really enjoyed exploring different facets of Israel’s natural history, and its varied ecosystems.

One aspect of the museum that I really like is how we have insight into the work behind the scenes. The biodiversity section (a fascinating exhibit in its own right) includes windows into the team’s storage area, and even a section where a team member was working on a new extension of an exhibit.

This sort of approach is a great way to involve visitors in what the team’s doing, and a terrific way to show us that this is an evolving project. This was a fun visit, I look forward to visiting again some day.