Oh! The Places You Can Go!

The heat is setting in. The schedule for final examinations is being announced. Vacation plans are being finalized. Talk of sports, art, and dance classes are starting to circulate. This can only mean one thing: summer’s almost here!

This is the time of the year you spend just relaxing and enjoying with family and friends. There are endless conversations about the exciting places that you can visit and the fun activities that can be done in the next two months. However, having fun does not necessarily mean that there isn no learning involved. There are number of education places that give great importance to learning by experience.

Museums

A museum is an institution that conserves a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance. Museums make these available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities, like Manila and Quezon City; while more local ones exist in smaller cities and towns.

There are a number of museums that you can visit in the Philippines. In Metro Manila, there are the Mind Museum (Taguig City), an interactive and world-class science museum and Museo Pambata (City of Manila), an interactive and child-oriented museum.

For those living in the Visayas region, you can visit Museo Iloilo (Iloilo City), which is considered as the first museum to be sponsored by the national government outside the greater Manila area, and the Siliman University Anthropology Museum (Dumaguete City), which displays several interesting exhibits about human beings, particularly in the fields of natural science as well as humanities.

In Mindanao, there is the Rizal Shrine (Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte), which showcases Rizal’s photograph collections, sculptures, paintings, and personal memorabilias. Another is the T’boli Museum (Lake Sebu, South Cotabato), which houses a collection of antiques and artifacts in a building patterned from a traditional T’boli house.

Parks

A park is an area of open space provided for recreational use. It can be in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted and set aside for human enjoyment and for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soils, water, flora, fauna, and grass areas; but it may also contain buildings and other artifacts like playgrounds. There are national parks, which are protected by law, and urban parks, which are open for recreational use and maintained by the government.

Spend time with friends and enjoy the wonders of nature by trekking and boating in La Mesa Ecopark (Quezon City), or by experiencing what it’s like to be a junior explorer in The Lost Eden Educational and Recreational Park (Parañaque City). You can also jog and feed the tilapias of the lagoon in Capitol Park and Lagoon (Bacolod City), or you can enjoy the water features, walkways, and artworks in Davao People’s Park (Davao City).

Zoos

A zoo is a facility where animals are confined within enclosures that attempt to replicate their natural habitats, and these animals are displayed to the public. Some zoos have walk-through exhibits, where visitors can enter enclosures of non-agggressive species, like birds, lizards, and turtles. The types of zoo range from a public aquarium and petting zoo to an open range zoo and roadside zoo.

Here in the Philippines, you can visit the Mactan Island Aquarium (Mactan Island, Cebu)., Misamis Occidental Aquamarine Park (Sinacaban, Misamis Occidental), and Manila Ocean Park (City of Manila). These are public aquaria that showcase a number of marine and freshwater species. For those who would like to learn more about different wildlife species, Avilon Zoo (Rodriguez, Rizal), Crocolandia Foundation (Talisay City, Cebu), and The Manila Zoological and Botanical Garden (City of Manila) are just the places to visit.

These are just some of the places that you can explore and enjoy. There are still a lot more which promote fun and learning just as much. And summer is the right time to do just that. So, explore all the learning havens; set your mind to add more information to your bank of knowledge; and go and enjoy the whole experience with friends and family! Have a fun and learning-filled summer!