Video: A Eureka! moment for Paralympian Hannah Cockroft

Yesterday the 20-year-old sprinting star returned to the museum she had visited many times as a child to help launch its new £2.9m All About Me gallery which aims to help young people to lead healthier lives.

She said: “I was born in Halifax in the same month that Eureka! first opened and it is something that has been with me throughout my childhood so it is an honour to be asked to come back here as a Eureka! ambassador to open the All About Me gallery.

“I came to Eureka! last December to show children my medals which was when I learned more about All About Me and how it aims to inspire young people to learn all about their bodies. And, more importantly, how to look after them.”

The opening of the gallery on Good Friday will mark the completion of the biggest redevelopment project in the museum’s 20-year history.

It replaces the Me and My Body gallery which had been the most popular feature of the venue in Halifax town centre.

Although Cockroft said she was hugely impressed by the new exhibits she told the Yorkshire Post she was delighted it had retained the giant mouth which had been housed in the previous gallery as she had so many family photographs of her inside it as a youngster.

Leigh-Anne Stradeski, Eureka!’s chief executive said yesterday’s event was the first time children and the museum’s staff had been inside the completed attraction which had taken four years to develop, design and build.

“It is an absolute delight to see children’s faces coming in and seeing this for the first time.

“All About Me’s predecessor Me and My Body has been enjoyed by nearly 6m children and families, and when I say enjoyed I mean pushed, prodded, stomped, banged, pedalled, poked, pinched and pummelled and all of the other things children do to the things they love best.

“It’s a minor miracle it survived for 21 years and no wonder that replacing it has been our top priority for the past few. However, creating and installing this new gallery is not just about putting in exhibits simply so that everything is shiny and new.

“All About Me is a gallery of our time, reflecting the interests, issues and concerns of children and families today and helping to solve the social and health problems of tomorrow.

“We’re all bombarded daily with messages about the obesity crisis, too much time spent in front of telly and computers and not enough being active...At Eureka! we’ve made it our mission to make sure that all children have the opportunity to achieve health, happiness and wellbeing throughout their lives and to do all that we can to provide them with the knowledge and the confidence to make choices that move them in this direction.

“Enter All About Me, a gallery which we’ve designed over the course of three years, that we hope will encourage children and families from all walks of life to explore and discover why their bodies are so incredible, and what choices they can make to look after them and lead happy, healthy and fulfilling lives.”

One of the main aims of Eureka! is to allow children to learn through play.

Children entering the gallery are met by a new robot before being given a host of new areas to explore. In the Measuring and Looking Closer section children can measure their height, stride and reach and found out more about what they are made of.

There is also a health centre which allows young people to take on the roles of dentists, doctors and a midwife.

Other features in the new gallery include a section called Our Brain and Senses in which children can find out how the brain works, look around a giant blinking eye, climb up a huge tongue and look up a large nose.

There is also a section called Let’s Get Active which allows visitors to find out more about how their body changes and also enjoy a climbing wall and interactive pond. The gallery will also get young people to think about their diets at a picnic tables area.