Spotlight on St. Louis: The Saint Louis Science Center
If you grew up here, or visited the Saint Louis Science Center as a child you probably remember he wonder and awe at how a coin can swirl down the funnel like that - or at how big the T-Rex is.
The Science Center is one of those places you can return to regularly, at different life stages, and find it completely different, but also very much the same.
From your experience as a small child, to demonstrations and summer camps and more as you grow older, to coming back as young adult and older for Omnimax movies and planetarium shows, First Friday events or Science On Tap (their yearly beer tasting event).
There’s that feeling when you finally grew tall enough to properly help build the Arch, and no matter your age or level of interest in science, the Science Center still manages foster an enjoyment of lifelong scientific learning and a spirit of inquiry.
Whether it’s climbing up on the combine at the GROW exhibit, digging up dinosaur fossils in the the Dana Brown Fossil Prep Lab and Dig Site, learning an obscure fact in the current featured exhibit, watching a tornado form in the Ecology and Environment display, building something new in their Makerspace, or discovering you actually do like math with the puzzles at their problem solving corner, they touch on all types of science. Those listed include only a few of the 700 displays that across the Science Center’s two buildings.
Across the sky bridge, where you can look down on the traffic speeding down highway 40, you can visit Mission: Mars Base and join a mission to Mars in the year 2076. You can also learn about St. Louis companies’ role in building the space program before enjoying a star show in the planetarium.
The Science Center is one of those places you can return to regularly, at different life stages, and find it completely different, but also very much the same.
The Saint Louis Science Center traces its origins back to the first scientific organization west of the Mississippi River. Called the Academy of Science of St. Louis, it was founded in 1856. In 1959, they became the Academy’s Museum of Science and Natural History in Clayton’s Oak Knoll Park. Then, in 1971 the museum split from the Academy and the Metropolitan Zoological Park & Museum District (ZMD) was formed with the Science Center as a member.
By the mid-1980’s they had outgrown their home in Oak Knoll Park. When they acquired the James S. McDonnell Planetarium from the City of St. Louis in 1984, renovations and plans to move to Forest Park began.
They reopened as the Saint Louis Science Center in 1985, but the building we know today (and it’s skywalk to the Planetarium) didn’t open until November 2, 1991 and more changes soon followed. The EXPLORADOME was added in 1997, and in October of 2011 Boeing Hall was added with 13,000 square feet of exhibit space that allowed the Science Center to better present traveling exhibitions.
In 2016 was a good year for the Saint Louis Science Center. They were named the first Smithsonian Institution Affiliate in the St. Louis area and the EXPLORADOME became GROW, a permanent indoor/outdoor exhibit dedicated to how food gets from the farm to the fork.
Currently, the Saint Louis Science Center is hosting Guitar: The Instrument that Rocked the World on load from the National Guitar Museum through April 14, 2019. Through the exhibit you learn about the origins of this actually ancient instrument in the Nile River Valley to its chick-magnet status as a mainstay of the modern music scene.
The exhibit includes more than 100 historical artifacts and 70 instruments from the innovative to the most popular - both incredibly historic and modern day pieces. You can also enjoy hands on interactive displays, x-ray images of guitars’ inner workings, and videos.
Last but not least, while visiting you can enjoy the surround sound and video of the Omnimax and the breathtaking visuals in their documentaries.
The Saint Louis Science Center is located at 5050 Oakland Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63110 regular hours include Monday – Saturday from 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. - enjoy your visit!
Copyright © Amanda Honigfort, 2019