Visit the Museum
Exhibits
Science In Play
Different activity zones challenge children to investigate, assess risks, use objects as tools, shop for shapes, textures and colors, explore, build, climb, predict and test – all through experimental and imaginative play.
SIP Main Gallery
Reach new heights in our towering Happy Climber, sharpen your senses in the Noodle Forest, and engineer your own roller coaster with modular track pieces.
Science Depot
Changing themes means little scientists can explore, create, and share new things every month.
Color & Light
Build with Magna-Tiles on the Light Table, design with the biggest Light Brite you’ve ever seen, and explore light and shadow.
Shapes and Stuff Store
Shop for shapes, colors, and textures, or imagine faraway places in the Reading Nook.
Cityscape
Send an important letter in our classic mailbox, or travel to new destinations in our Smart Car.
Big Shapes
Build a house, a submarine, or a sea monster with the Big Blue Blocks
Water Table
A new and improved version of everyone’s favorite! Explore the properties of water while you splash and spray!
Air Ways
Harness the power of wind to send scarves traveling through transparent tubes, launching toward the sky and floating down in a flurry of color.
Grow Zone
Tiny science exhibits, like sensory and magnet walls, offer the perfect place for the little scientists to experiment.
The MakerPlace
The MakerPlace at Kentucky Science Center with Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana is designed to inspire a lifelong passion for making. Regardless of your artistic talent, current tech experience, or ability to accurately answer math problems; the maker movement encourages you to ask questions, solve problems, and even learning from failure! Start learning by doing in our new MakerPlace opening November 9th!
Will It Be Open To Visitors?
Yes, this space will be open to the public and included with admission. While the space may occasionally close for workshops and classes, our normal schedule is:
- Sunday – Thursday: 11:00am – 4:00pm
- Friday & Saturday: 11:00am – 3:00pm & 4:00pm – 7:00 pm
*All dates and times subject to change.
What Is Making?
Making is a beautiful blend of Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math all centered around creativity and endless possibilities. Through this process of curiosity, tinkering, discovering the right questions, embracing mistakes, and problem-solving that we grow, innovate, and invent. This is a skill set vital to the workforce in STEM careers as individuals need to constantly work together to create innovative solutions, use 21st century skills, and solve real-world problems.
Will My Child Use Real Tools?
Yes, there will be lots of tools in MakerPlace. Parent supervision is recommended, and our staff will be on hand to answer any questions and provide guidance. Workshops and skill building sessions will be available for you to explore activities like soldering, circuitry, textile crafts, and so much more!
- Will both my two year old and my 10 year old want to experience this exhibit space? The MakerPlace is designed for children 8 and up with parent supervision. Our Science Depot explores many of the same principles and themes as The MakerPlace and is specifically designed for younger ages.
What Is The Difference Between The Exhibit and Workshops?
The MakerPlace will have a variety of activities during normal hours, with professional staff on hand to help with your experience and you use the tools. During the workshops, we will dive deeper into a specific skill and may include a take home element.
- How do I sign up for a Let’s Make a Thing Workshop and the Skills Building Session?
You can register for MakerPlace Workshops here.
Who Forted?
It is a fort builder’s dream! At Who Forted?, the whole family can experience the of the joy of building a living room fort with piles of sheets, pillows, and other fun household items. Can you build the best, most creative, and largest fort in town?
What Does Building Forts Have To Do With Science?
While building a fort, you are actually practicing many scientific concepts including: architecture, engineering, geometry, and interior.
Families will:
- Construct unique structures and spaces.
- Get creative! Try out different designs and see what worlds kids will create inside.
- Solve problems. We bet your fort will not be perfect the first time, you will have to add and change things to make it work.
- Communicate and collaborate with others during the building process
- Build confidence in your abilities of engineering design.
- Dream up extraordinary ideas, there are no limits to your imagination.
- Have fun!
The World We Create
A collection of interactive exhibits designed to engage in investigative science and engineering practices.
Rocket Table
Can you use tape and paper to engineer a rocket that will reach escape velocity? Try it!
Wind Tubes
Engineer your own flying machine! Use an array of different materials to get the most lift from your design.
Build It Up (the Crane)
Refurbished and reinstalled in January of 2017, this classic Science Center favorite allows visitors to experience the mechanics of a real crane, and the challenges of construction.
Whisper Dishes
Share a secret conversation from different sides of the room–acoustic mirrors reflect and focus the sound waves of your whispers to cover great distances!
Theremin
Activate your creativity and learn about the physics of proximity sensors with an early electronic musical instrument played without any physical contact!
Nanotech Gallery
Learn about the science and technology of the very, very small, and how nanoscience is changing the way we create new substances to achieve incredible functions.
Ohio River Bridges Project
See how projects like the Lincoln and Lewis & Clark Bridges blend Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math, to create beautiful and powerful structures that change lives. Test different bridge designs, discover the science behind their construction, and control a timelapse video of the construction of both bridges.
Discovery Gallery
In our Natural History gallery, learn about anthropology, archaeology, and paleontology. A beautifully-curated collection of specimens, from gems and fossils, to a real life-size alligator, give guests plenty to explore and observe.
Polar Bears
Get a sense of the scale and power of the largest bear in the world! Two real, full-sized polar bears are poised to give guests an up-close and personal view of this beautiful, vulnerable species.
Mummy
This authentic Egyptian mummy was exhibited at the World’s Fair in 1904 before being acquired by the museum. The mummy, Then-Hotep, has been dated to the late 25th to early 26th Dynasty (700-625 B.C.,) but the coffin is nearly 3,500 years old. This carefully-preserved artifact can be viewed in our Discovery Gallery.
Gemini Trainer
Project Gemini, NASA’s second human spaceflight program, fell between projects Mercury and Apollo (1961-1966.) While our Gemini space capsule never left the ground, it helped many astronauts in the 1960s prepare for their space missions.
The World Around Us
Natural and earth sciences come to life! Explore ecology and ecosystems, biological diversity, and natural selection and adaptation through three galleries: “atmosphere – the air that surrounds us,” “terrasphere – environments that support us,” and “aquasphere – the water that sustains us.”
Weather Watch
Weather is the interaction of sun, air, and water in the atmosphere, and weather patterns determine climate! Step inside Weather Watch to become a WLKY meteorologist, working to keep Kentuckiana informed of severe weather emergencies.
Go H20
Water is a powerful force and essential to sustaining life! At Go H2O, get a sense of how water moves and interacts with the landscape. You control the direction of the water, while processes like erosion, sedimentation, and flooding impact what you set in motion.
Cave Crawl
Kentucky is home to the biggest known cave system on Earth! Get ready, get set, and spelunk in the Cave Crawl, a part of our “terrasphere,” where you can learn what makes (and what lives in) a cave.