National Science Museum Thailand

www.nsm.or.th

Technopolis, Khlong 5, Khlong Luang, Pathum Thani 12120

The National Science Museum Thailand (NSM) is a state enterprise under the Ministry of Science and Technology located at Technopolis, Khlong 5, Khlong Luang, Pathum Thani which is in the central area of Thailand. It was founded in 1995 and opened its first museum, Science Museum, to the public in year 2000. The main mission of NSM is to raise public awareness of science and enhancing civic science literacy by communicating science with the public. At present, NSM has three museums in operation comprising Science Museum, Natural History Museum, and Information Technology Museum, and one museum under construction, Rama 9 Museum, which is scheduled to open to the public within 2019. All four museums are located in the same area of NSM headquarter. In addition, NSM has developed Science Square which is situated on the 4th and 5th floor of Chamchuri Square in Bangkok to serve the public in the city and set up Science Caravan as a mobile unit to bring science to the public in other regions of Thailand.  In average, Science Caravan travels throughout the country 200 days a year and serves more than 500,000 visitors every year.  In total, NSM serves more than 3-million visitors per year from kinder to youth, schools and universities’ students, teachers, educators, families and general public.

To complete its mission and achieve the goal of being a center of excellence in learning-center development, management and utilization, NSM offers lifelong learning experiences to its visitors in various forms: interactive exhibition, education programs, science camps, science show, science lab, science dome and many other related activities in the area of basic and applied science, natural science and ecology, computer and information technology, careers and innovation, local wisdom, and science communication. These activities are provided not only in the museums but also in our outreach programs and science caravan. 

In addition to exhibitions and education programs, NSM also organizes many professional trainings, workshops, seminars, and science competitions in different topics such as science communication, museum management, taxidermy and biodiversity, at both national and international level.  In term of research, apart from collection-based research related to each museum, the two main research areas of NSM are in science communication and biodiversity. 

Since 2006, NSM has been assigned to organize the main science events at national level on behalf of the Ministry of Science and Technology comprising Science Avenue for Children, and National Science and Technology Fair which is the largest annual science popularization event of Thailand and receives more than 1-million visitors country-wide every year. This event has proved to be a great success in raising public awareness of science so that the government by the Ministry of Science and Technology had allocated more budget to NSM in 2018 to organize Regional Science and Technology Fair to serve the public in the north, northeast and south of Thailand.