| Facts | Prices: Adults £7.99, Concessions £5.99, Family tickets and annual passes are available Opening Times: March - October 2002: Open every day 10am - 5pm From November 2002 to February 2003: 10am to 5pm Tue - Sun Magna will also be open on the following Mondays during school holidays - 30 December 2002, 17 and 24 February 2003. Closed: 24 and 25 December 2002. Getting there: By bus: No. 69 (Sheffield - Rotherham) stops outside Magna
By car: There is ample parking at Magna Facilities: Restaurant, cafe, play areas and gift shop Contact details: Magna, Sheffield Road, Templeborough, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, S60 1DX, T: 01709 720002, F: 01709 820092 |
From the outside Magna looks like a big black warehouse, more suited to storage space than visitor attraction. Looks, of course, can be deceiving; on the inside Magna is fun writ large. Again, as with many of our local interests, there is heavy emphasis on themes such as sustainable development, pollution and conservation but on top of this there are a great many features whose existence is dedicated solely to excitement and quenching curiosity.  | | The fire tornado |
So here's the pitch. Magna is a centre whose aim is to make nature come alive, paint in the colour to what can on occasion (for example a particularly rainy autumn day) feel like a very grey environment. In line with this, there are four main sections within the building - Fire, Water, Earth and Air. Each sub-section is laden with games, video screens, interactive quizzes and a good share of information.  | | Explore the elements |
To my kind this appeals to adults easily as much as children because here learning is an option but it is not the only one. A particularly good example is the chair (found in Air). For some it may simply mean a good old dizzy making spin. For others it is a lesson in aerodynamics. The choice is genuinely yours. As expected I shared my visit with a couple of parties from nearby schools, and for any parents out there, I have to warn you, Water is far and away the most popular (and most messy) section. With any number of opportunities to get wet, Water is great fun. I can assure you not many of the children came out of this part of Magna dry. But there is more than silliness to the centre, subtly there are important messages being fed thorough the games. For example there is a console game where you take charge of a fish on its way to the ocean. Where upon first glances this is nothing more than disposable amusement, as the levels progress it offers valuable insight into both the food chain and water pollution (how easy it would have been to win if there wasn't that oil slick in the way).  | | The face of steel |
There are also a great many spectacles to behold (the fire tornado seemed to draw an especially large crowd during my visit) and even the lift room with the crackling of electricity overhead and the lava-lighted darkness has a slightly awesome feel. Each of the four canopies has their own particular appeal and the eco friendly meesage is never swallowed in the shadow of the jets of water or blasts of wind, and as such a wall in the Earth section bears the maxim "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". There is, though, more to come by way of a large exhibition hall. Although there was no show on during my time at the centre, there are regular displays and shows, the latest of which is the impressive sounding 'Living Robots'. I could go on. I could tell you about the slightly scaled down digger game that seems more suited to seaside amusement resort than education centre, I could tell you about the working water geizas but I won't. You'll just have to go and find them yourself. | 
