Explore our Sagan Planet Walk, a free, outdoor walking tour of the solar system.

Designed for small hands, littler bodies and inquisitive minds, the Curiosity Corner is a vibrant, safe environment, welcoming our youngest guests by encouraging hands-on exploration and play. The Curiosity Corner is for children ages four and under and includes an infant area, water table, air station, activity table, an area with wooden and foam building blocks, an outdoor Curiosity Playground, and more.

Pet Vet
Modeled after a real veterinarian’s office and with input from faculty and students at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, this exhibit that creates an immersive environment in which children can role play as veterinarians. Children can examine real X-rays of animals, weigh plastic animals on scales, work together to help their animals mend a broken leg, and clean stuffed animals in the grooming station.

Join us for Science Together on Tuesdays through Fridays at 10:30am.

Encounter live animals by visiting our saltwater Tidepool Touch Tank which introduces guests – in a very hands-on way – to some of the animals that call the ocean home. Located in the Brooks Family Foundation Ocean Education Gallery, the tank features marine invertebrates such as Forbes Sea Stars, Long clawed Hermit Crabs, Horseshoe Crabs, and more. Its companion saltwater aquarium features coral reef species typically found in “back reef” areas where the waves and currents are strong.

Hours:

Saturday: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm; 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Sunday 1:00-3:00

All hours subject to volunteer availability. Daily Tidepool Touch Tank hours available at the Front Desk.

The museum’s popular outdoor Science Park is open April 1 – November 30, during museum hours and is included with museum admission. Wheelchair and stroller accessible, the multi-level playground includes a variety of outdoor science exhibits that invite you to explore sound, motion, water, physics, and other scientific concepts. Make music, bounce on the world’s only Kevlar cable suspension bridge, explore geometry on the 14-foot high rope structure, and more! For our littlest guests, ages four and under, the Curiosity Playground outside of the Curiosity Corner offers infants, toddlers, and preschoolers space to crawl, climb, and explore in their own designated space.

Our Sciencenter Mini-Golf course is open April 1 – November 30, during museum hours and is wheelchair and stroller accessible. The 18-hole course includes science-themed obstacles at every hole. Try to escape a black hole, explore the power of centripetal force at the loop-the-loop, watch your ball erupt out of a volcano, and more! Mini-golf is not included with Sciencenter admission.

Open throughout the year, be sure to check out the Sagan Planet Walk, our free, outdoor walking tour of the solar system. Then take a stroll, or sit and relax, by Cascadilla Creek as you learn about our watershed and steps you can take to protect it at Science by the Stream, located next to our mini-golf course.

The Energy Labs exhibit encourages guests to come explore three natural resources—water, wind, and the sun—and how they can be used to generate electricity.

Configure your own wind turbine towers and then challenge friends to generate electricity; work with a friend to pump up reservoirs with water and then let it fly to spin a turbine (under construction); and use an array of mirrors to divert light towards a miniature solar collection tower.

Each of the three stations provide interactions with, and information about, real-life sources of electricity. This exhibit is custom-designed and built in-house, so come visit an exhibit that you can’t find anywhere else!

This project was funded by very generous grants from the Park Foundation and the Tompkins County Tourism Program to support the education of our community around sustainable energy sources.

Explore sustainability at our Aquaponics exhibit. Aquaponics is an agriculture technique that combines aquaculture (raising fish) with hydroponics (growing plants without soil). The wastes from the fish become the food for the plants, while the plants help clean the water for the fish. This technique uses much less water than aquaculture, and grows plants without the need for energy intensive fertilizers. Our exhibit helps provide much of the food our herbivorous reptiles eat.

Our Saltonstall Animal Room features unique habitats from around the world organized according to amphibians, reptiles and fish. These habitats focus not just on the animals, but also on the environments in which they are found. Experience a tropical rainforest with some mysterious green tree pythons. Check out the beautiful yet invasive red lionfish suspended within a North Carolina shipwreck. Or explore the wildlife found in your own backyard in the New York Natives gallery, plus even more amazing animals.

Plus, come visit our new pop up animal gallery featuring lots of fun new animals!

Our saltwater Tidepool Touch Tank features marine invertebrates such as Forbes Sea Stars, Long clawed Hermit Crabs, and Horseshoe Crabs.

Hands-on Tidepool Touch Tank Hours:

Saturday: 11:00 am -12:00 pm; 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Sunday 1:00-3:00 pm

All hours subject to volunteer availability. Daily Tidepool Touch Tank hours available at the Front Desk.

The Sagan Planet Walk is a walking scale model of the solar system, extending 1.2 km from the center of The Commons in downtown Ithaca, NY, to the Sciencenter.

*The Saturn station is currently in storage due to construction.

Enjoy fun exhibits throughout the museum, designed to engage Young Scientists ages 5 – 11 in topics such as astronomy, climate, math, sound, engineering, animals and more.

Dig into your favorite science topics by lifting the lid of our 20+ fun and engaging discovery boxes. Discovery boxes are open depending on volunteer availability.

Use rubber ducks to explore hydrology and civil engineering. Build a gravity dam using metal blocks and prevent the creek from flooding. Trigger an array of sounds as you traverse our interactive stairway.

Come build and create using our always-popular blue blocks! These fun blocks allow for imaginations to run wild while creating fun structures!

Changing Skies allows guests to interact with and learn about weather. Explore local weather and the impact topography and elevation have on the weather. Make it rain, sleet, or snow, and use your body to interact with the precipitation! Find out how water moves through a landscape at our Make it Rain exhibit where you can move sand around to create mountains and valleys. Using data from the Sciencenter weather station see how weather at the Sciencenter changes over time. See how weather patterns are impacted by topographical features such as mountains, valleys, trees, and even buildings! Experiment at our Mist Table to see how air moves into and around objects, and more!

Come see the beautiful Sciencenter murals!

With help from Ithaca Murals we put out a call for artwork to cover our Franklin Street fence and we received over 65 incredible submissions. With help from our community we chose the finalists that would create our 20 new murals! We also partnered with TCAction to have Head Start complete murals. In the fall of 2021 we unveiled the incredible works of art!

This project was made possible in part with funding from BorgWarner Inc. and Tompkins County Tourism Program.

Sciencenter Unveils 20 Mini Murals from Shira Golding Evergreen on Vimeo.