15 years of focusTerra
focusTerra is celebrating its 15th anniversary in April 2024. This anniversary will be recognised on International Museum Day, which will take place at focusTerra on Sunday, 26 May 2024.
As the Earth & Science Discovery Center of ETH Zurich, focusTerra offers a platform for professionally communicating research at the universities and its relevance as well as for promoting dialogue with the public.
Since its opening in April 2009, focusTerra has attracted over 250 000 visitors to ETH Zurich. Today, it welcomes more than 20 000 visitors per year, almost half of which are children and young people interested in Earth and Natural Sciences.
focusTerra has become an important extracurricular learning centre where schoolchildren come into contact with geology and related sciences and technology.
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Young and old alike can explore the wonders of nature at the annual storytelling and experimentation afternoons. -
Visitors can learn interesting facts about science, technology and research in public guided tours. -
As guides of focusTerra, students can train in science communication. (Image: Matthias Auer)
The vision of focusTerra is to inspire through knowledge and empower people to better understand and respect their natural and man-made environment.
With a variety of programmes – also online – focusTerra aims to fascinate people with the beauty and relevance of nature and its phenomena. Innovative approaches to science communication are used to promote critical thinking, break down barriers to understanding and appeal to people of different ages and backgrounds.
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In the barrier-free exhibition 'Fossil Art', millions of years old fossilised traces of ancient creatures could be experienced with all the senses. -
Visitors can use various offers to guide themselves through the permanent exhibition. -
The online tours of focusTerra take us to Iceland and other geologically exciting places on Earth.
“focusTerra impressively engages in dialogue with the public through innovative formats and contemporary science communication. The team combines exhibitions with opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogue as well as art and culture. Effective, innovative, forward-looking, state of the art!”Prof Dr Günther Dissertori, Rector of ETH Zurich
The permanent exhibition of focusTerra, which opened in 2009, was updated during a renovation in 2019 and fully supplemented with English texts.
In its special exhibitions, most of which are developed in-house together with researchers, focusTerra focuses on Earth, Planetary and Natural Sciences as well as technologies and their significance for society.
Since the opening of focusTerra in 2009, over 20 exhibitions have been shown, which are in demand both nationally and internationally and have been shown in other museums and at conferences.
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The exhibition 'Waves – Dive in!' invited visitors to playfully discover the relevance, beauty and power of waves with all their senses through its large-format, colourful illustrations and many hands-on exhibits.
(Image: Matthias Auer) -
The stories in the exhibition 'Expedition Solar System', presented in the form of comics, offered a fun way to discover the science of our planetary environment. (Image: Matthias Auer) -
The exhibition 'Earth's Treasures' was about the formation, mining and use of mineral resources, and how we deal with products we no longer need. (Image: Jon Etter)
Successes
- In 2012, focusTerra opens 'Fossil Art', the world's first accessible geological exhibition for people with visual impairments.
- The exhibition 'Earth's Treasures' is shortlisted for the Prix Expo of the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) in 2016.
- The web video external site external page'InSight - Mission to Mars' wins 2nd prize in 2020 at Fast Forward Science, a multimedia competition for science from Germany.
- The online exhibition 'Travel Stones' wins the Open Box Special at Fast Forward Science in 2022.
- The planned exhibition 'KEEP IT CO2OL' receives the Optimus Agora Prize 2023, awarded by the Swiss National Science Foundation SNSF and swissnex San Francisco, which recognises the communication potential of the project.
In 2023, focusTerra joined the external page'Environmental Emergency Pledge' of Ecsite, the European network of science centres and museums. Together with like-minded institutions throughout Europe and the USA, focusTerra is setting an example for sustainability.
The next exhibition, which is currently being developed, will also deal with the topic of sustainability: 'KEEP IT CO2OL' will highlight our current situation and discuss the options we have for tackling our excessive CO2 emissions with the public and experts from science, industry and politics.
focusTerra would like to thank everyone who has contributed to making its activities so exciting and successful for their amazing support over the past 15 years. A big thank you also goes to the visitors for their loyalty.
Would you like to support us?
With a donation via external pageETH Foundation, you will help us to continue to create exciting exhibitions and events and to educate students in science communication.
Thank you very much!