41 Ways to Have Fun at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA

The most visited museum in Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Science Center is home over two dozens exhibits and 100 interactive activities spread across four floors, welcoming over half a million visitors each year. On our recent visit to Pittsburgh, we enjoyed a whole afternoon exploring the Carnegie Science Center and testing our knowledge and understanding of everything from engineering to astronomy and space exploration to geology, biology, and marine life to health sciences.

One of the four Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh, the Carnegie Science Center opened in 1991. Originally the Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science, the museum, opened in 1939, housed a planetarium and several interactive exhibits (some of the world’s first!) celebrating science and technology. In the 1980s, the museum needed a larger space for expansion and when a merger with the Carnegie Institute was confirmed the museum moved the Planetarium and exhibits (including the famous miniature Railroad and Village) to a new facility on the banks of the Ohio River.  The museum is super family friendly and engaging for visitors of all ages any time of the year!

Be sure to leave time to explore the Highmark SportsWorks exhibit, which opened in 2008. Housed in an adjacent 12,000 square foot building, there are over two dozen activities, organized in three areas: Lifeworks, Physics of Sports, and Sports Challenges. 

Travel Tips:

41 Ways to Have Fun at the Science Center:

1. Create your own lego structure, or model a famous site, at an open station in the Bricksburgh Exhibit on the 4th floor. The exhibit also includes stations to build and race your own car or obstacle course, create a 3D maze for balls on a tilt-table, and construct an earthquake proof building. 
2. Let the preschool crew (under age 7) run free in the Little Learner Clubhouse on the 4th Floor. The exhibit includes water tables, an indoor playground, a book nook, a pretend garden, and a multi sensory display with over 200 buttons. There’s even a special section for babies. 
3. Complete in a timed test about energy consumption amongst appliances in the Energy Challenge in the Energy Zone on the 4th Floor.The exhibit also has circuit stations, an electrified dollhouse (see which appliances use the most energy), and the chance to produce an electric current to launch a ring up a metal pole.
4. Lay out x-rays to create a full skeleton, compare the size of a human heart to a dog’s heart and a cow’s heart, learn how human noises like farting are created read about world records, pull the rope to see the length of the small intestine in the BodyWorks exhibit on the 3rd Floor.
5. See growing hydroponics and aeroponics systems and vertical gardens in the Mars: The Next Giant Leap exhibit on the 2nd Floor.  The massive exhibit also includes hands-on opportunities to learn about changing climates and comparing life on Earth and Mars. The massive diorama entitledThe Settlement which models what life on Mars might look like and includes touch screens that allow people to choose various components of living Mars and how one decision impacts other lifestyle opportunities. 

6. Look very closely for 18 butterflies hidden throughout the Miniature Railroad and Village on the 2nd Floor. Originally opened in 1854 in the Buhl Plantarium, the village is 83 feet by 30 feet and took 18 months to create. There are hundreds of animated scenes (in all four seasons) depicting famous Pittsburgh neighborhoods, businesses and events during the early 20th century, and each year, the public can vote on a model to be added to the display. 
7. Lie down in a bunk bed and sit on a toilet in a full scale replica model of two segments of the International Space Station in SpacePlace on the 1st and 2nd Floors.
8. Splash in the Water Cycle River Table, learn how to form waves, see tanks of turtles and snakes and beetles, and broadcast a weather report ALL in the H2Oh! exhibit on the 1st Floor.
9. Launch an air rocket, play air hockey, and drop parachutes from above ramps in the Peirce Gallery inside SpacePlace on the 1st Floor. 

10. Be a human yoyo, bouncing up and down 25 feet in the air using cable tethered handles in You-Yo in SportsWorks.
11. See if you can match the heartbeat of various animals (slower and faster than a human’s heartbeat) in Keep the Beat in SportsWorks.
12. Time your reaction skills by playing on the world’s largest “bubble hockey” table in Big Hockey in SportsWorks.
13. Practice basketball free throws, soccer kicks, baseball hitting, and Olympic sprints in Sports Challenges in SportsWorks.
14. Take a self guided tour of the USS Requin, a 311 foot submarine used to patrol the East Coast during the Cold War, parked on the banks of the Ohio River. Commissioned in 1945, it was in service until the late 1960s with a crew of 10 officers and up to 90 enlisted men, and was then a reserved training ship until it was moved from Florida to Pittsburgh in 1990. Note: the Requin’s opening is weather dependent- check online and ask staff about hours of operation. It was closed, due to heat, when we visited so we did not have the opportunity to tour the submarine.

Looking for other adventures in Pittsburgh? See our feature of the Heinz History Center, the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Frick Pittsburgh Museums and Gardens, our tour of Acrisure Stadium, our feature of the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium, and full City Guide here. And follow along on our adventures on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.