Musem-History

1988. European Year of Environment, Paolo Beneventi runs 4 projects with the children of the kindergarten in Brescia, The River, The Horse, The peatlands and Nature in Town, with a wide video documentation.

1989-1992. Paolo goes on with other projects on environmental subject in Brescian kindergarten.

1997. First projects in primary and kindergarten schools of Lombardy with Coop Lombardia, video I Bambini e l’Ambiente (Children and Environment)

1998-2002. With many classes of primary and kidergarten schools, the municipality of Brescia and Coop Lombardia, Paolo leads kids exploring the green areas of the town, with the final production of a CR ROM, Alla Scoperta della natura in città (Discovering Nature in the City)

2004-2014 Almost every year, groups from primary and kidergarten school of Brescia and and surroundings go discovering insects, spiders and centipedes in their school yard or garden, with a huge photo and video documentation. Main Videos: Concittadini Inaspettati, La Natura sotto Casa, Costruiamo insieme il Museo dei Piccoli Animali.

2007 November. The Photo Exhibition Concittadini Inaspettati (Unexpected fellow citizens), by Paolo Beneventi for Coop Lombardia, is set up for the first time in the halls of the Museum of Science in Cremona, with a multimedia catalogue in CD ROM.

Once upon a time they were people who tried to publish digital works, different from usual books and traditional audiovisual products and also from websites that people surf in a few minutes. We made a CD ROM about the experience of the children of Brescia discovering Nature, with their pictures and voices (2002), another about marine protected areas in Italy (2004), as well as the multimedia catalogue of the exhibition Concittadini Inaspettati.

2008, October, The Photo Exhibition Concittadini Inaspettati is Genova at the Feltrinelli bookshop

2009 November. The Photo Exhibition Concittadini Inaspettati is in Brescia, Museo di Santa Giulia

2009. A Videoclip: Il Lombrico Joe

2009. The Book I Bambini e l'Ambiente (Children and Environment), by Paolo Beneventi, is out with Edizioni Sonda, Casale Monferrato

9/02/2010. The original Museum is on line, by Paolo Beneventi

14/02/2010. The Museum opens its own group on Facebook.

2010 May. A workshop by Paolo with children in the precincts of Ambiente Parco, and a project with Galleria della Natura, Brescia, Italy

2010. Videos are embedded in the Museum from a new YouTube channel, of teacher solomk7, Marika Rongo, from Putignano, Italy

October 2010. Paolo and Scuola di Robotica are in schools to work about insects and robots.

29/10-5/12 2010. The exhibition Copioni e Copiati, is set in Genoa, by some Museum advisors.

2011, 31/04 - 05/06. The exhibition Concittadini inaspettati is in Brescia, by Cooperativa Lavoratori of Mompiano.

2011, May 05. The Museum takes part in the meeting of Scatti di Scienza Under 18. Milan, Italy.

2011 May . Art Studio Mali Monmartr, Belgrade, Serbia, joins the Museum with a series of drawings and ceramics.

2012, September. The Children’s Virtual Museum of Small Animals is chapter n. 1 in Handbook of Research on Didactic Strategies and Technologies for Education: Incorporating Advancements, published by IGI Global. See the Abstract.

2013-2014: Paolo's e-book of Photography, Science and Poetry are out with MammeOnLine / Matilda editrice: Mosche, Imenotteri, Coleotteri, Emitteri.

2015 October - December. The video of the Museum takes part in the film festivals of Cordoba, Argentina, and Pyrgos, Greece.

2015 December. The whole 3rd primary school in Pyrgos, Greece, joins the project of the Museum looking for pictures of insects on the field.

2015 December. The Museum re-opens, widely re-designed, hosted in the Terra Insieme web domain, and re-launched by a new, international group. A great support is given by the Organic Garden Dream group from Cindea Hung, Taiwan, whose members begin to publish especially in the Museum Facebook Group.

2016. It begins a cooperation with Scuola Verde of Gran Sasso. Paolo makes a short quick video and a project is proposed to schools.

2016 Video trailer for the Museum, with English text and Italian voice

2017 August 16: Last update of the Museum on the old web site, then a long pause, looking for new and more effective solutions.

2017. Many people from different parts of the world go on sharing pictures of small animals in the Facebook group. Some new videos are published in Paolo Beneventi and Terra Insieme YouTube channels.

2020 August. In times of Covid19, a summer remote activity for kids is attempted by the Museum and Terra Insieme on line of Hub48: “A Bugs's life”.

2021, Museum comes back with a new site and other projects to be developed, from the collaboration with Saperenetwork, but
the work does not go well.

2022, May: Ritratti Animali (Animal Portraits), at Manerba (Brescia Italy.
2022, August:: Mente Photo Natura (Mind, Photo, Nature) at Capranica (Viterbo. Italy)
After a period of only sharing some pictures on social network among collaborators and occasionally making short videos and publish them on YouTube, new small but significant experiences take place, hence the idea of a more serious and convinced relaunch of the museum than in the past.
.
2022. October.
After too long a period of contacts, attempts, problems with human interlocutors and technological resources Paolo is looking for software and a suitable platform to create and publish this multimedia book online. No longer a Museum proposal, but the real Museum, which can finally work.

2022, November. As part of a larger project to be developed, called "Active Children", linked to a new book that Paolo Beneventi is starting to write, the new Children's Virtual Museum of Small Animals is online.

2023, March. The collaboration with the Archaeological Museum of Manerba resumes with a continuous collaboration during events and with proposals to schools.

2023, June. For the relaunch of the museum in the schools of Brescia, a collaboration with the association Brescia Green takes place.

2023, December, 2024 April. By the with the Archaeological Museum of Manerba an Hotel of Insect is placed and conferences and workshops with schools and groups of kids are held on pollinator insects.