The Botanical Garden
The Tel Aviv University Botanical Garden, extending over an area of about 8.5 acres, is located near the Museum of Natural History. The Garden presents Israel’s flora according to its regional distribution, alongside unique plants from other places around the globe. All in all it is home to about 3,800 species of plants. Established in 1973, the Botanical Garden fulfills the spiritual will of Noah Naftulski, a pioneering researcher of Israel’s vegetation. Today it serves as a center for research and education, as well as a sanctuary for endangered species of plants.
Guided tours of the Garden, for individuals or groups, are tailored for a wide range of needs and target audiences – providing a hands-on experience combined with scientific edification.
Sanctuary: The Botanical Garden is a laboratory for the study of rare species of native plants in danger of extinction. The Garden takes various steps to conserve these rare plants, acting as a sanctuary for Israel’s floral diversity.
Research: The Garden hosts collaborations with researchers from a range of other units at Tel Aviv University, such as the Department of Archaeology, the Faculty of Art and the Faculty of Engineering. Dozens of studies and experiments are carried out in the Garden, in a range of fields: ecology, botany, biotechnology, cell biology, developmental genetics and more.
Education: The Botanical Garden serves as an educational hub for professionals, as well as the wider public and schoolchildren. Visitors are introduced to the beauty of nature and the wealth of plant life, while becoming acquainted with important ecological and evolutionary phenomena, such as plants’ adaptations to their habitats and plant-animal interactions.
The diversity that represents Israeli vegetation, combined with a range of species from the world over, make the Botanical Garden a dynamic, living museum that displays the innumerable facets of the plant world.
Visit the website of the Botanical Garden
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The Garden for Zoological Research (The Zoological Garden)
The Garden for Zoological Research at Tel Aviv University fosters and leads zoological research and scientific education in the State of Israel. The Garden is home to a comprehensive, representational collection of animals from Israel and the surrounding region: about 40 species of mammals, 100 species of birds and 80 species of reptiles and amphibians, including gazelles, fallow deer, wolves, jackals, storks, pelicans, vultures, eagles, chameleons, skinks, and a range of snakes, frogs and toads.
Guided tours of the Garden, for individuals or groups, are tailored for a wide range of needs and target audiences, providing a hands-on experience combined with scientific edification. The Zoological Garden is located at close walking distance from the Museum of Natural History
The Garden’s main goals are nature conservation, research and education.
Nature conservation: Prof. Heinrich Mendelssohn (1910-2002), one of the founding fathers of nature conservation in Israel and a founder of Tel Aviv University, was first to establish recovery nuclei for endangered species in the Zoological Garden. Today the Zoological Garden, in close partnership with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, serves as a hub for activities related to nature conservation. The Garden hosts research on the reproductive behavior of many different species, in order to sustain reproductive nuclei in captivity, and release their progeny to the wild.
Research: The Garden for Zoological Research provides a scientific infrastructure for diverse studies on wildlife: ecology, nature conservation, animal behavior, physiology, endocrinology, entomology and more. This opportunity to study animals typical of our region enables us to understand both intraspecific and interspecific processes related to the conservation of biodiversity. Research in the Garden is carried out by researchers and research students from the School of Zoology at Tel Aviv University, as well as many scientists from other universities in Israel and around the world.
Education: The Zoological Garden serves as a place of study for many different learners: zoology students from Tel Aviv University, students from other universities, colleges and teachers’ colleges, tour guides from the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and rangers of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. In addition, large numbers of k-12 students visit the Garden every year, enjoying enriching activities tailored to their study curriculums.