New list reveals most ‘fun’ educational visitor attractions in the NE

According to various scientific research papers, the human brain is more receptive to learning when having fun. Accordingly, a survey was carried out to find out which of the UK’s educational visitor attractions was the most ‘fun’ and therefore the best at helping people learn and remember scientific or historical information.

The company that commissioned the research, Saturn Visual Solutions, has subsequently created a list of the ‘UK’s top 50 most fun educational visitor attractions’. The rankings are based on the number of people that named the site as a ‘fun’ attraction, rather than metrics like visitor numbers which tend to discount many smaller educational visitor attractions.

Two visitor attractions in the North East region were listed. Beamish Museum in Stanley was the highest ranked educational visitor attraction in North East and 32nd in the overall rankings. It is an open air museum which tells the story of life in the North East region since the 1820s. It features an underground colliery complete with pit ponies, a steam train, plus reconstructed shops and homes to visit. It costs £17.25 for an unlimited visit annual pass.

The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, which is free to enter, was ranked 38th for its ever-changing and diverse visual art exhibitions.

Saturn CEO, Chris Welsh, said: “Every year there are tables of data about which visitor attractions are the most popular, but something that’s often overlooked is how much ‘fun’ they are. Both adults and children are more likely to learn and remember information if it’s part of a ‘fun’ experience, so we thought that it was important to find out which educational visitor attractions were most successful in making learning fun.

Saturn Visual Solutions is a digital signage consultancy that works with leisure businesses and charities to help them make the ‘visitor experience’ more engaging and fun.