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Science, Technology, Natural History Museums?

Posted by timothy on from the your-neck-of-the-woods dept.

beadfulthings writes "An unexpected windfall has enabled my husband and me to plan a road trip next year. He's expressed a wish to visit some good science, technology, and natural history museums along the way. Of course it's easy to obtain a long list of them via Google, but I'd like some insight and input. What does your area or city in the US or Canada have in the way of science museums? Are they worth traveling to visit? Do you have any particular favorite exhibits or 'must see' recommendations? This man was brought up in Philadelphia and apparently spent most of his boyhood and adolescence at the Franklin Institute and its Fels Planetarium, so I guess that would be his 'gold standard.' I grew up going to the Smithsonian. Any area of science, math, technology, natural history, or even industrial stuff would be fair game. I think we'll probably want to miss out on the 'creation science' stuff."

7 of 435 comments (clear)

  1. Indy Children's Museum by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes it's a "Kids" museum, but if you like anything hands on, it's awesome. Even to a 25 year old BSME.

    http://www.childrensmuseum.org/

    That and the museums in Chicago.

    1. Re:Indy Children's Museum by EMB+Numbers · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The Indianapolis Children's museum is weak for both children and adults compared to either St. Louis or Toronto. Indianapolis is comparable to CoSci in Columbus OH.

      My family and I love zoos and museums. Our annual family vacations have included museums/zoos all over North America and the U.K. over 20+ years.

      The St. Louis Science Center is free and very good. The Ontario Science Centre in Toronto is the best science museum in the world; it takes 3 days to see everything. I particularly like the perpetual motion machines. They have exhibits of machines that inventors claim exhibit perpetual motion - it's a puzzle for you to figure out the trick to each one... where it gets its energy. I love to listen to the school kids on tours theorize how each machine works and debate with each other. It is great to hear 14 year olds talk about laws of thermodynamics or the Venturi effect. IIRC, one really tricky one works based on the surface tension of soap bubbles, but you eventually have to blow more bubbles ;)

      The Air Force museum in Dayton Ohio is bigger and better than the Smithsonian Air & Space museum. At the Smithsonian, the exhibits hang from the ceiling out of reach. At The AF museum, you can touch the airplane that bombed Nagasaki, stick your head in a Gemini capsule that orbited Earth, climb into the bomb bay of a B-29, hand turn a Nazi jet engine prototype, view the Red Baron's medals, kick the tiers of fighter jets, etc.

      The Field Museum in Chicago is fairly good, but the Natural History Museum in London U.K. is the best in the world. The London Transport Museum is also great.

      St. Louis, Minneapolis/St. paul, and San Diego have the best zoos, but Indianapolis has a nice zoo too. I have recently been to zoos in Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Cincinnati, Toronto, Wheeling, and Des Moines. All were nice in their special ways but not great.

      I have never seen a planetarium that impressed me, but I'll keep looking.

  2. Pirates!! by sys.stdout.write · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The field museum in Chicago has an exhibit on Pirates (the old-fashioned kind). It's awesome. Go there.

  3. Re:RandomDude by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't think the Holocaust Museum counts as either science, technology, or natural history.

    However, to add another to this list which also doesn't strictly fit that requirement, I'd add the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Despite the name, it's really more of an anthropology museum, with some fantastic ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek exhibits and artifacts.

    I'd also add the Star Trek exhibit in Las Vegas, but they closed that and it's now on tour. :-)

  4. Deutsches Museum in Munich? by dltaylor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You didn't specify continent, so:

    http://www.deutsches-museum.de/

  5. Boston by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    The Museum of Science in Boston is the best one I've been to. http://www.mos.org/

  6. Ashfall by darisd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ashfall just underwent a massive expansion and is a completely amazing place to visit, if you are in the area of north-eastern Nebraska. Look it up if you are into mammoth-era fossil sites.