The Science Museum

This large site has some wonderful touches and is generally sharp and well-designed. Links work with precision and speed, operating either via the highlighted words in the text or the menus that generally appear on the left-hand side of each page. The overall structure is large and complex, with links flowing out from the homepage. The homepage is actually more like a news page, dealing largely with the most recent events and happenings at the museums. But if you can fight past them follow the collections link on the left-hand side of the homepage. Here you can find out about the permanent collections by subject. These pages explore all the facets of the Museum's extensive galleries and collections. All the information here is illustrated and much of it is linked to the English National Curriculum, so is suitable for children's projects.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Exhibitions Online - This uses a series of interactives to explain a variety of issues and concepts. The Apollo 10 exhibition, for example, has quite an inventive learning game about building rockets, a VR tour of the inside of Apollo 10 and video clips featuring the crew members. Doubtless to the joy of sci-fi fans, Arthur C Clarke has his own exhibition. (No interactives, though, only text and images.) Also featured are 'exhiblets', which we saw at the National Railway Museum. These tend to be smaller, without any interactivity built into them, but they do present information in an attractive way.