4 New England Science Museums to Visit

Science museums aren’t just for classroom trips. They’re among the most popular attractions families look for when traveling. Here are some for your next New England journey.

Museum of Science, Boston, Massachusetts
Leading the list is the largest, Boston’s Museum of Science, among the nation’s best. Along with the wide variety of hands-on experiences highlighting all the sciences, engineering and space, the museum is known for its dynamic features and special exhibits. Currently exhibitions include the Immersive Room, where multimedia effects surround visitors; an interactive exhibit exploring how the human brain interprets illusions; and the new Innovation: Earth, exploring the ways we’ll live, move, eat and work in a carbon-neutral world.

Ecotarium Worcester, Massachusetts
In western Massachusetts, Ecotarium Worcester is an indoor/outdoor museum combining three floors of hands-on, interactive exhibits with a large outdoor campus where visitors can meet resident wildlife and explore woodland, meadow and marsh habitats. Throughout the museum’s programs and exhibits on the natural and physical sciences, special focus is on New England environment. Kids who like bugs will like the brand-new exhibit Attack of the Bloodsuckers, where interactive exhibits explore fleas, ticks, mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects.

Montshire Museum of Science, Norwich, Vermont
In Norwich, Vermont, the more than 100 exhibits at Montshire Museum of Science encourage kids to touch, feel, experiment and create. They can make their own optical illusion toys and learn how movies make images move by creating one of their own. The museum sheds light on light, helping kids learn how to bend light rays and separate white light into colors. In the Discovering the Natural World exhibits, kids get up-close views of feathers, bones, insects and plants through a microscope and can explore nature trails alongside the Connecticut River.

Connecticut Science Center, Hartford, Connecticut
At Connecticut Science Center in Hartford, kids explore the physical world around them with experiences like the Forest of Illusions, where optical illusions blur the line between vision and fantasy. The Engineering Lab shows how engineering solves real problems, challenging kids to launch a ring with electromagnetism, program a Mars rover and build an earthquake-proof structure. Science Alley, the 10-story atrium at the museum’s heart, explores weather, aeronautics, the connections between living creatures, the unseen universe underneath the sea, and the science of earthquakes and violent storms.