Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is one of the UK’s most ‘fun’ educational visitor attractions

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.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard was the 19th highest ranked educational visitor attraction in the UK, and the highest ranking in the South of England.

It combines a range of historic ships, three maritime-themed museums, and interactive displays about the art of shipbuilding.

It was slightly more popular with male respondents and was most popular with those in the 25 to 34 year old age category (7%).

Matthew Sheldon, CEO of the National Museum of the Royal Navy said “This is great news, and a testament to the work of both ourselves and the Mary Rose Trust, as joint operators of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.”

Dominic Jones, CEO of the Mary Rose said “We think Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is the perfect mix of fun for all the family, while offering chances for genuine educational content, and it’s lovely to see people agree with us.”

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.

“Our research found that nearly half of adults categorise something as being boring if it doesn’t have engaging activities. So, it’s no major surprise that so many of the highest-ranking educational visitor attractions in our research, like Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, have interactive exhibits and experiences on offer.”

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.