City: Birmingham, AL

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (205) 714-8300

Insider Pick:

Description: The McWane Science Center is an incredible non-profit interactive science museum and IMAX theater with four floors of all sorts of fun activities for the whole family. Alabama dinosaur skeletons stand beside an anatomically correct crawl-through bass fish complete with internal organs. Almost everything about the McWane Center is focused on hands-on activities, allowing children to physically explore science in a variety of ways, including touching sharks and manta rays in the Touch Tank, graphic examples of the theory of persistence of vision, and wielding automatons that draw three-dimensional shapes. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The IMAX dome theater projects the latest 3-D children’s movies and family-friendly scientific documentaries. Featured exhibits like the “Adventures of Mr. Potato Head” and the “Science of an Oil Spill” make science appealing and topical. The McWane Center offers rental space for 5 to 5000, including full catering and birthday options, day and overnight camps, a cafe with multiple dining options, and a gift store filled with an assortment of educational gifts and fun souvenirs. The McWane Science Center is open every day and during most holidays. When the weather is unpleasant, McWane is one of the most popular destinations for parents looking for something to do with stir-crazy kiddies.