Maryland Science Center

The Maryland Science Center occupies a three-story building on Baltimore's Inner Harbor waterfront at 601 Light Street in Maryland, housing a five-story IMAX theater, the historic Davis Planetarium, and four floors of hands-on exhibits exploring earth science, astronomy, physics, and biology. The Davis Planetarium, one of the first in the United States when it opened in 1964, offers scheduled digital sky shows in a domed theater with reclining seats; show times run throughout the day and are worth planning a visit around. The ground floor is dedicated to the Chesapeake Bay, with live blue crabs, horseshoe crabs, and oysters in touch tanks alongside exhibits tracing the ecology and history of Maryland's defining waterway. The physics hall on the second floor invites visitors to build structures, launch projectiles, and explore electricity through large-format interactive stations designed for tactile learners of all ages. Third-floor astronomy galleries display NASA mission hardware, scale models of the solar system, and simulations of stellar life cycles. Newton's Alley, a three-story climbing ropes course and wall that runs through the building's interior, draws active visitors who want to apply physics concepts through their own movement. A dedicated KidRoom on the ground floor is designed for children under eight, with age-appropriate science play that requires no reading. The IMAX theater shows educational films on a five-story screen; tickets are sold separately or bundled with general admission for a discounted combined rate. The rooftop observatory hosts public telescope viewing events on clear evenings throughout the year. A typical visit including exhibits runs three to four hours; adding IMAX and planetarium shows brings the total to four to five hours.