The Kentucky Science Center, previously known as the Louisville Museum of Natural History & Science and then Louisville Science Center, is

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

's largest

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

. Located in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

, on "Museum Row" in the West Main District of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

, the museum operates as a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

organization. It was founded in 1871 as a natural history collection. Many students in Kentucky take

field trip A field trip or excursion is a journey by a group of people to a place away from their normal environment. When done for students, as it happens in several school systems, it is also known as school trip in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and ...

s to the Kentucky Science Center. There are about 550,000 visitors annually. A special hands-on area for children, featuring six educational activity sections, was renovated and renamed as ''KidZone'' in 1998. The building is located at 727 West Main Street and is about 150,000 sq ft (14,000 m²). The distinctive cast-iron facade

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

building was originally built in 1878 as a dry goods warehouse. The city purchased the property in 1975, and the museum moved to the premises in 1977, subsequently winning several design awards for its preservation of the building. A four-story digital theater was added in 1988 and renovated in early 2014. The

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the ...

has been a fixture of the building for decades. On January 11, 2007, it was announced that the Kentucky Science Center would acquire the Alexander Building, which was built in 1880, adjacent to the original building. In 2009, the center opened a Science Education Wing on the building's first floor. The wing includes four science-workshop labs equipped for "hands-on participation". The five-story Alexander Building is nearly 37,000 square feet (3,400 m²).

References

External links

Official site
Science museums in Kentucky Natural history museums in Kentucky Museums established in 1871 Museums in Louisville, Kentucky 1871 establishments in Kentucky Association of Science-Technology Centers member institutions

See also

References

External links