Chicago Museums
Adler Planetarium
The Adler has three theaters, space science exhibitions, including the Gemini 12 space capsule, and a collection of antique scientific instruments and print materials. In addition, the Adler hosts the Doane Observatory, a research-active public observatory.
Chicago’s Night Sky features real science and research from several of the Adler’s program initiatives, including Far Horizons, Youth Organization for Lights Out, and Zooniverse. Get a first-hand look at the work Adler teens and experts are doing to measure light pollution in Chicago and help find solutions to restore and protect dark skies.
The largest of Adler's domed theaters, the Grainger Sky Theater, offers audiences unique shows using the most immersive, technologically enhanced theater experience ever developed for a planetarium. The dome itself measures 70 feet across.
https://www.adlerplanetarium.org
Chicago Childrens Museum:
The museum focuses on 3 distinct age categories:
Babies and toddlers –
Each exhibit at CCM has something to offer the youngest visitors and many include special infant and crawler play areas. Treehouse Trails and Kids Town are especially popular with young visitors.
Ages 4-8 SWEET SPOT
Children between the ages of 4 and 8 feel at home at nearly every space in Chicago Children’s Museum—in fact, you could call this age range the museum’s sweet spot. From family Saturday afternoons to mid-week field trips, Chicago Children’s Museum provides valuable educational experiences and activities for young school-aged children—that also happen to be a blast.
Experience the twists, climbs, and views of Cloud Buster, our one-of-a-kind climbing sculpture. esigned by artist Kevin Winters, Cloud Buster is 37 climbable feet of structural steel, wood, wire, rope, acrylic, fiberglass, and artificial turf perched over Navy Pier's Fifth Third Family Pavilion.
Visitors can explore multiple levels, climb through unexpected spaces, and ascend to The Apartment, Cloud Buster’s highest destination that’s designed to resemble a Chicago apartment, complete with Chicago-themed artwork and posters.
Ages 9+
Designed by Chicago Children's Museum and supported by a generous gift from Chicago Yacht Club Foundation, Boats provides a nautical environment for the unstructured, pretend play This exhibit taps into children’s natural fascination with boats, allowing them to captain their own adventure and play with an abandon not possible in a real boating situation.
- Flex your building and problem-solving skills in Tinkering Lab where you can use a variety of tools and materials to create your own solutions to engineering challenges.
- Skyline is the landscape to design and build a kid-sized skyscraper using wooden struts and real tools. The exhibit encourages wonder, inquiry, experimentation, and problem solving.
https://www.chicagochildrensmuseum.org
Chicago History Museum:
CHM strives to be a destination for learning, inspiration and civic engagement. Through dynamic exhibitions, tours, programs, digital resources, and special events, the Museum connects people to Chicago’s history and to each other.
https://home.chicagohistory.org
Field Museum of Natural History:
Since opening the Museum in 1894, the museum's collection has grown to nearly 40 million artifacts and specimens. The breadth of its mission has expanded, too. The scientific staff continues to research the objects in its collections, as well as document previously unknown species, conserve ecosystems in the region's locale and across the globe, and educate future scientists.
Museum of Science and Industry:
Among the museum's award winning exhibits are a full-size replica coal mine, German submarine U-505 captured during World War II, a 3,500-square-foot (330 m2) model railroad, the command module of Apollo 8, and the first diesel-powered streamlined stainless-steel passenger train.
