从某种意义上说，了解过去和现在是从博物馆开始的。一座博物馆就是一部历史与文化的发展史，人们通过文物与历史的对话，穿越时空的阻隔，俯瞰历史的风风雨雨……
In a sense, that understanding the past and the present starts from museums. One museum is a phylogeny of the history and culture; people understand the history through cultural relics and history……

今年暑假，我有幸随就读的武汉外国语学校到英国进行了为期两周的创新素质实践行活动。异国他乡文化学习交流的新奇，游览大本钟、西敏斯特大教堂和泛舟莱茵河的惊讶与兴奋……而最让人流连忘返的当属种类丰富、展品珍惜的博物馆。英国作为全世界博物馆密度最高的国家，仅伦敦就有200多家博物馆。除了鼎鼎大名的大不列颠博物馆（即大英博物馆），坐落于伦敦南肯辛特区的英国自然历史博物馆更是给人留下了难以磨灭的印象。
作为世界上最大也是最负盛名的自然历史博物馆之一，英国自然历史博物馆原来为1753年创建的不列颠博物馆的一部分，1881年由总馆分出，1963年正式独立。为维多利亚式建筑，形似中世纪大教堂。博物馆共分三层，总建筑面积4万多平方米，拥有世界各地动植物和岩石矿物等标本约4000万号，其中古生物化石标本 700多万号，图书馆有书刊50万种，并保存着大量早期的自然研究手稿和图画等珍贵品。 全馆有20间大陈列厅，内容包括古生物、矿物、植物、动物、生态和人类等六个方面。中央大厅为现代生命科学陈列厅，用立体景观、展柜介绍进化论和人类学知识。其中，图片所示的全景荧幕最为精彩，吸引了众多游客驻足观看。一层右翼各陈列厅展示古生物化石标本；左翼各陈列厅展出现代动物,其中以鸟类的陈列最为出色。二层左侧展出哺乳动物，其中较精彩的是非洲热带草原动物和澳大利亚有袋动物的陈列；右侧陈列矿物、岩石、宝石，并有专室陈列陨石。三层是现代植物和化石植物的陈列。这些动植物陈列大多采用全比例模型，十分逼真。为了防止游客们在这些展厅组成的大迷宫中迷失方向，展方专门设计了一套特殊的颜色分区系统，不同展区门前都用不同的颜色标示，随处可见的展区平面图则像一块调色盘一样将展区结构公示给游客。而自然历史博物馆最吸引的地方还要算它互动式的展出方式，各式展品在展方的设计下变得趣味盎然，也难怪随处可见父母带着孩子一起参观的景象。该馆是伦敦群众性科学活动的主要场所之一，每年观众和参加各种活动的人数在 250万以上。
出口前的最后一个展厅是纪念品售卖厅，五彩缤纷的羽毛笔、印有博物馆标识的笔记本以及众多与自然历史相关的出版物都是抢手的卖品。虽然价格大都不菲，游人们还是愿意买下些有趣的物件留作纪念。

This summer, I was lucky to participate in the two-week innovation quality practices in England with my school Wuhan Foreign Languages School. Newness of culture and study communication in foreign countries, astonishment and excitement when touring Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and shipping on Rhine…… while what make us forget to return are plentiful kinds of museums with precious exhibits. As a country with the most museums in the world, there are more than 200 museums in Landon. Besides the famous Great Britain Museum (British Museum), British Natural History Museum located in South Kensington left us profound impressions.

As the greatest and the most famous natural history museum in the world, British Natural History Museum was one part of Great Britain Museum created in 1753 in the past time, it was divided from the general museum in 1881, and officially established in 1963. It is a building of Victoria style like a cathedral of the middle ages. The museum has three layers with a total building area more than 40 thousand m2, owning about 40 million specimens of plants, animals, rocks and minerals in all places of the world, including more than 7 million welwitschiopsida fossil specimens and 500 thousand kinds of books in the library and a large amount of natural study manuscripts and pictures in the earlier period. There are 20 big exhibition halls in total including welwitschiopsida, mineral, plants, animals, ecologies and human beings. The center hall is for exhibiting modern science introducing us the knowledge of evolutionism and anthropology with stereoscopic landscape and exhibition shelves. In which, the panorama screen shown by pictures is the most fantastic, which attracting numerous visitors. Each show hall on the right of the first floor exhibits welwitschiopsida fossil specimens; on the left exhibits modern animals, in which birds exhibition are the most excellent. On the second floor, mammals are exhibited, what are more fantastic are Africa tropical grassland animals and Australia marsupial animals; on the right side, minerals, rocks and precious stones are exhibited and there is also special show room for aerolites. On the third floor, modern plants and fossil plants are exhibited. These animals and plants are exhibited with full-scale models, which are very true to nature. In order to avoid visitors to lose in these show halls, the exhibitor specially designs a set of special color zoning system, you can see color marks in front of each exhibition area, plane drawings for exhibition can be seen everywhere just like color palettes for showing visitors the structure. While the most attracting place of the natural history museum is its interactive exhibition mode, each exhibit become so interesting as designed by the exhibitor, no wonder parents and children visitors are in all the way. The museum is one of the main places of public scientific activities of London, visitors and participators of all activities are more than 2.5 million each year.

The last exhibition hall before you get out is a memorial hall, colorful quill-pens, book notes with a mark of the museum and numerous publications related with the nature and history are the best sellers. Although they are very expensive, visitors are also willing to buy some of them for memory.