St. Louis Science Center, St. Louis City

Location:  5050 Oakland Ave. St. Louis, MO 63110

Amenities: Hands-on science-themed exhibits for children, cafe*, planetarium*, OMNIMAX theater*, gift shop, private room for nursing mothers, ATM, lockers*

*additional fee

Website: http://www.slsc.org/

There is a $15 fee to park in the lot at the main Science Center building on Oakland. I prefer to park on the Planetarium side at Clayton Ave in Forest Park because it is free. My kids enjoy the walk over the bridge and the activities along the way. Also, the dinosaurs and F-18 Hornet are over here on the grounds outside. 

The statue outside the planetarium is super cool.

When you enter the planetarium you will see some cool Mars exhibits, a gift shop, and some Virtual Reality rides.

You can start heading towards the Skybridge and you'll encounter lots of cool stuff along the way.

I think every family in St. Louis has a picture similar to this!

The Structures exhibit is on the walkway over Hwy 40, and this is where you can build an arch of foam blocks, and watched the cars driving beneath the highway thru windows in the floor. Older kids seem to find using the radar guns to see how fast the highway traffic is going very interesting. I thought the time-lapse video of the highway 40 reconstruction was pretty neat. You can also use a digger to pick up tiny beads and move them around and experiment with bridges and more.

Creating bridges 

Omnimax

The Discovery room (second floor) is such a great thing for kids.  You get 45 minutes in the room (geared toward ages 3-7) and it starts on the hour every hour. Most people find it's not near enough time for their kids to explore all there is to play with there. Just to name a few things, there's a table to set up your own zoo of plastic animals, rocket ship with slide, musical instruments, fish tank, space table, magnetiles, and seasonal craft tables.

 A lot of people gather at the door and wait for it to open. They have a lego table out here and have some other toys for kids to play with while they wait.

Lego table

Space table

Magnifying table

They periodically change up the different things in this room and have different crafts all the time too.

Fish tank

STEaM Easel

Rocketship slide

Imagination playground

Wind tunnel with scarves and baby ball pit

Shadow puppet theater

Star room with glow in the dark stars on a felt wall

Cockroaches

Hooded outfits for pretend

Plastic animals

 Dollhouse

 Musical instruments cube

 Crafts

The dino dig area next to the huge animatronic dinos is always a hit. There is also a fossil lab next door with various activities and a mini theater where they do classes and shows.

On this level, there are all kinds of cool exhibits explaining energy, tornadoes, earthquakes, and coal burning.

They have a newer area on the second floor called the Makerspace. There are lots of fun things in here to do including:

• Air Ball – Play to experiment with how wind affects different objects. Then use the materials to create a game to teach to someone else! 
• Float and Fly – Create an object using simple materials and then test it to see if it flies. Then Adapt your design to make it float! 
• Sail Race – Design a sail using Tinkertoys and fabric and then send it down the racetrack. Can you Modify your sail to beat the best time of the day? 
• Ball Run – Assemble the magnetic pipes to get a ball from start to finish on one side of the ball run. Work Together with others to try and get the ball around all four sides of the cube! 
• Rigamajig – Imagine and Build something larger than yourself using our Rigamajig building materials! 

On the second floor (ground level) you can walk outside to the GROW area. They have an outdoor building with classrooms for scouts and other groups. 

 Chickens!

 

 

 

 

 

Don't forget the huge dinos outside! If you're walking into the planetarium it's to the left of the entrance down the hill.

They have a T Rex and Triceratops.

There's also a Blue Angel Jet on display

There are several cafes to grab a bite to eat. They have 2 on the first floor and one on the second floor at the Omnimax. My kids love eating and watching the balls fly around the contraptions hanging from the ceiling.

They sell alcohol!

The Science Center is just a great place to spend time with your kids. They have all kinds of events, storytimes, special exhibits, classes, and more. It's great that it's free and usually not very busy. I used to spend so much time here when my kids were toddlers and I just needed to let them run. The great thing is that it grows with your kids as they get older and start to understand more. We are thankful we have this wonderful place in St. Louis!