For information and reservations from the educational service Telephone: 902 232 858 activitatsmuseudelgasfgn@gasnatural.com

The Gas Museum is a centre for consultation for research projects. Students and researchers who are carrying out a research project will find the necessary assistance for access to documentary sources and for interpreting them.

The Gas Museum, building a sustainable building with good views

The activities around the La Energía building show its particular aspects from a bioclimatic perspective. They explain how the building was rebuilt respecting the sustainability measures through the use of recycled materials in the frame of the new facade, the building of a cistern and a photovoltaic pergola on the Observation Deck, the installation of low consumption lighting or the placement of an energy mirror that provides data on the indoor and outdoor climate and energy consumption occurs at every time. From the Observation Deck you can enjoy the urban landscape and the mountains that surround it.

Activity: A Very Special Building
Upper Pre-School Education and Early Primary School

Four stories are told related to the building using objects that serve to embody the story. Immediately after they pay a visit to the part of the building related to the story told. Finally, the pre-school groups take part in a workshop handling and reusing materials and they are encouraged to construct a variety of things (buildings, cars, etc..) with reused material.

Activity: The Traces of the Architect
Mid Primary and Upper Primary School

We present the museum as a living building. Starting from the figure of an architect who left a series of traces in different corners of the building, the group moves around the whole building with a map and a set of clues to identify what it means to say that a building is sustainable, what measures give thermal stability to the building, and how to achieve efficient lighting, control energy consumption or make efficient use of water.

Activity: Auditing for Sustainability
Secondary, High School Diploma and Vocational Training

The energy mirror of the museum is the protagonist of this activity. The data that appear and which specify the energy flow of the building are analysed, from the incoming primary energy, water, gas and electricity, to the energy consumed at every moment, to the energy saved thanks to building with sustainable criteria. The group finishes by preparing an audit to conclude if the building really is sustainable.

The Tools of the Future

These activities raise the importance of energy in the future of Humanity and the Planet. The activities show the different types of energy of the present and the future, with their points for and against, and introduce the tools available to the public and the efforts undertaken to become more energy efficient.

Activity: Different Energies
Upper Pre-School, Beginning Primary

To learn more about different types of energy, what can seem like a magic trick is used: moving various objects. A proposal is made to the group that, through a game, exploration and creativity, they can discover the secret that makes objects move: energy. In the visit to the museum, they assign a name to each of the ways energy arrives and, using resources from the exhibition, other places where this energy can also be used are explained.

Activity: Pros and Cons of Different Types of Energy
Mid-Primary School and Upper Primary School

Based on five curious elements, the group is asked to find out how to put these items in operation. To do so, the group explores the exhibition independently with a card that directs observation and the search for information, so as to detect the energy that drives every curious element, together with their pros and cons. Finally, the group discovers the advantages and disadvantages of wind energy, hydro, solar and natural gas.

Activity: The Tools of the Future
Secondary, High School Diploma and Vocational Training

The objective of this activity is to get to know the energy sources most currently used by society, and what will the ones in the future. The group is asked to find the solution for the museum, following the guidelines of scientific practice, and required to say how they imagine the future of energy, what energy they believe they will be using, what inventions there will be, which will have to be invented, all with a more specific link to the case of natural gas.

From Yesterday to Today: Gas, Electricity and Society

These activities take their example from the energy obtained from gas and electricity fuels in the nineteenth, twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, to explain how historical events, crises, wars, years of poverty and prosperity, inventions and technological developments influence the obtaining of and use of energy resources. The activities facilitate reflection on the things we do every day and how energy use affects the habits and customs of society.

Activity: The Things We Do Every Day
Upper Pre-School, Beginning Primary

The activity serves as a guide to discuss the things we do every day thanks to gas and electricity. It starts at the La Energía shop where the group is shown a catalogue in which different very old appliances appear which are unknown to them. In the same shop, the group can find out what those devices were used for by means of the objects themselves, their adaptations, their illustrations by Junceda and advertising filmstrips from the twenties which they will find there.

Activity: Gas, Electricity, Comfort and Society
Mid-Primary and Upper Primary
Secondary, High School Diploma and Vocational Training

The activity shows how each new technological advance creates a new level of public and private comfort. Operating on town gas from coal, streets and the interiors of houses could be illuminated. Later, electricity meant a more extensive enjoyment of these advantages with the first gas appliances and electric appliances. The gas produced from gasoline meant a greater supply of energy and therefore of comfort in homes, basically due to being able to have hot water at any time. With the arrival of natural gas the heat output increased and it became possible to bring this energy to a greater number of citizens and to use gas for industrial purposes.

Gas Natural Fenosa, the History of an Electricity Company

The events and people that have allowed a company founded in 1843 as the Sociedad Catalana para el Alumbrado por Gas for gas for lighting the streets of Barcelona to reach the twenty-first century transformed into a gas, electricity and renewable energies multinational.

Activity: Beginnings and growth of a company
Secondary, High School Diploma and Vocational Training

The group is invited to watch the audiovisual "Facts and People", a compendium of the history of the company. Then they take a look at the mural of the genealogy tree before starting a walk through this section of the exhibition to see the documents attesting to the development of the business and the computing devices, the telephone devices and computers used at different times. Three audiovisuals expand the contents of the beginnings, growth and globalisation of the company and finally they can interact with a video wall and enter the website of Gas Natural Fenosa.

The Leading Role of the Archive

Activities around the Historical Archives provide knowledge of how an archive is compiled or of how the archive tells the story of the company. Moreover, the extensive collection of documents, occupying more than 3,000 linear metres of documents, enables the activities to be carried out to get to know how Sabadell entered modernity or what the advertising conserved in the archive is like.

Activity: A comfortable kitchen with lots of conveniences
Upper Pre-School and Early Primary

The group is accompanied to the Archive and it is explained to them that all kinds of documents are stored. Different folders full of a wide variety of documents are shown to them: maps, photographs, letters, catalogues, etc.. One folder is full of kitchen catalogues from different periods that the group has to classify and order according to different criteria. Finally, the group goes to the Grand Showcase to play a game to find the real kitchens portrayed in the catalogues.

Activity: How is an Archive Compiled?
Mid Primary, Upper Primary

The group is shown some files with different and very curious documents. They are encouraged to discover what differentiates them: the period, the format, the content, among others. The group has to act as an archivist would and classify these documents. In addition, a mysterious story remains hidden among the papers makes them play detective.

Activity: Sabadell Enters Modernity
Mid-Primary, Upper Primary

The activity enables them to follow in detail the arrival of gas and electricity in Sabadell. The first gas lighting made its appearance on the night of a Health Congress. From then on odd and interesting pieces of information are unveiled, such as stories appearing in the newspapers, explaining why the lamplighter couldn’t light the lamps in the Pedregar street or who lit the first light bulb, all to be found by the group in the Archive.

Activity: The Distribution Network, Witness to Urban Growth
Secondary, High School Diploma and Vocational Training

The activity offers the chance to get to know how gas and electricity is distributed by pipes and cables to the houses of different cities. The Archive conserves urban plans that detail the evolution of many towns and cities. Various devices and techniques used to represent the geography in two dimensions are also displayed.

Activity: Advertising in the Archive
Secondary, High School Diploma and Vocational Training

The activity focuses on identifying the different decades of the twentieth century through advertising and thus focuses on the advertising material that is preserved in the Archive. Advertising campaigns from different periods are presented, which the group has to order chronologically as well as detailing their contents. This activity is accompanied by a visit to the museum, where they see the advertising material that forms part of the museum graphics collection.

Activity: The Archive explains the History of the Company
Secondary, High School Diploma and Vocational Training

Based on the history of Gas Natural Fenosa, the group is informed about the organisational structure of a company: the Board of Directors, Shareholders, Accounting, Personnel, etc.. They are also shown documents created by different departments so that the group understands the contents of documents, classifies them and interprets the history of the company.

Activity: The Archive: The Heart of the Gas Museum
Secondary, High School Diploma, Vocational Training and Adults

This consists of a special guided tour of the interior of the Archive which includes the presentation of curious and significant documents.

Juli Batllevell, Architect, Citizen of Sabadell and Modernist

These activities propose a visit to the temporary exhibition on Juli Batllevell, the modernist architect who, in 1899, designed the original building that is the origin of the Gas Museum. The main focus is on the relationship between Juli Batllevell and Sabadell. They also cover his principal buildings and go deeper into the relationship between Batllevell and Gaudí.

Activity: What Beautiful Houses!
Upper Pre-School and Early Primary

Based on the description of each child’s home and of their school, the group starts to explore the diversity of structures that can be found in Sabadell. The objects and photographs from the Juli Batllevell exhibition allow them to discover the colours, materials and shapes which inspired Batllevell in his work. The group receives a letter with several commissions, such as one from a cook who wants a hotel, a waiter who needs a cafeteria or a secretary who needs an office, in order to identify these structures among the work of Juli Batllevell.

Activity: Juli Batllevell and Sabadell
Mid-Primary and Upper Primary

The activity enables them to get to know Juli Batllevell: how he lived, how he dressed, what he devoted his time and with whom, based on his objects and photographs. Then we see his work as an architect in Sabadell, all by describing the current Gas Museum building and walking through its surroundings, to learn to recognise other modernist buildings and learn out who made them, when and who lived there. Finally, they make their own mosaic of the type found in a modernist building.

Activity: Juli Batllevell, A Forgotten Gaudian
Secondary, High School Diploma and Vocational Training and Adults

From an exhibition based on photographs, the activity reveals the life of Juli Batllevell, closely linked to the history and art of a key era for the town of Sabadell. It explains everything that happened between 1895 and 1910 in Sabadell, while Batllevell was the municipal architect, and as well as the relationship that existed between his work and the science, technology and society of the time. These relationships are established based on the observation and analysis of his buildings. The group can be creative and develop a building that shows what has been learned through the life of Juli Batllevell.

From Gasworks to Gas Museum

With the Gas Museum, the Gas Natural Fenosa Foundation wants to give everyone the opportunity to contemplate the evolution of the energy industry, of both gas supply and the electricity current. At the Gas Museum we can see how gas has conditioned our lives. The museum is also a space to reflect on the future of energy, on the importance of using natural resources efficiently and on how to get energy that is continuous, economical and has a low environmental impact.

Activity: What is a Museum For?
Secondary, High School Diploma, Vocational Training and Adults

In this activity, the group is accompanied to discover the secrets of the Gas Museum and understand its history, from the first permanent exhibition that the company offered to school groups, customers and the general public at its Portal de l'Angel headquarters from 1975. On the guided tour we also find answers to questions like what a museum is for or if we know how to visit one.