by Olha Romaniuk

Created on: April 15, 2009   Last Updated: June 02, 2009

The Louisville Science Center is one of the most engaging, hands-on establishments in the country, with more than half a million people visiting its exhibits every year. The Center that started in 1871 with a very modest collection subsequently grew to become one of the region's leading resources for science education. Field trips, class excursions are often planned by many area educators to the Louisville Science Center more so than to any of the other area museums and institutes precisely because of the extend of the museum's present collections and its ability to engage the old and the young alike with its interactive exhibits and films.

PURPOSE
There is a scientist lurking within each ordinary person and the natural curiosity to find out how things work, where they come from and what they are made of often leads to exploration and discovery. The Louisville Science Center encourages such curiosity in its visitors by improving the public's understanding of science, math, and technology through interactive exhibits, IMAX films, and programs that are entertaining as well as educational. There is nothing like immersing in the world of science and learning something new without feeling contained in a stuffy classroom. The vision of the center, thus, recognizes the benefits of a fun learning environment and strives not to limit itself by serving very specific demographics, but rather, caters to everyone.

KIDZONE
The science center acknowledges its younger audience by providing them with a special hands-on area, where children younger than seven years old can explore the world brought down to their size. KidZone was created in 1998 and contains several activity areas for the children, such as TakeOff!, which allows kids to climb a structure or an airplane or BlastOff!, which features a lunar model.

INTERACTIVE PERMANENT EXHIBITS
For the older and taller crowd, the Louisville Science Center has several permanent exhibits that still work under the assumption that hands-on learning is the best way to engage with the subject matter and learn more about it. The World We Create, for example, features over forty activity stations that involve learning about the fields of chemistry, physics, engineering, telecommunications, and manufacturing. The World Within Us is another permanent interactive exhibit that opened in 2001 and focuses on the health and life sciences. This exhibit features a staggering amount of seventy-five interactive components. The World Around Us addresses

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