Digital Magazine Walk through Science Digital Magazine 1st issue WtS | Page 19

Swedish museum of natural history – Stockholm On 5th April, all students and teachers included in this Erasmus project's meeting , visited the Swedish museum of natural history in Stockholm. The Swedish museum of natural history was founded in 1819 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and today it is a government agency that reports to the Ministry of Culture. This museum promote interest in, and knowledge and research on, the origins and development of the universe and Earth, on the plant and animal worlds and on the biology and natural environment of human beings. During our visit we had the opportunity to examine closely a lot of Scientific collections (important biological and ge- ological collections) which are classified in the following de- partments: • The department of Botany which is one of the largest scientific collections in the world, comprising about 4.5 million specimens of flowering plants, ferns, algae, mosses, fungi, slime molds, lichens and bacteria especially the herbaria in this department is one of the largest in the world, with approximately three million specimens of fungi, lichens, algae and bryophytes. The collections consists of specimens from all over the world collected from the 1800th century until now. • The department of Geosciences in which have: mineral collection, well known mineral collectors, meteorite collection, topographical collection and so on. The collections in this department reflect three hundred years of collecting activities, which culminated during the late 1800s and early 1900s. • The department of Paleobiology which has extensive and valuable collections in all areas of paleontology - more than one million fossil samples from animals and plant. • The department of Zoology contain nearly 4.5 million objects - skeletal samples starting from skeletons of whales to microscopic nematodes. The oldest objects in the collections date from the 18th Century. • The department about the inhabitants of the polar regions Page 19