Emerald Coast Science Center

Looking for a unique adventure your family can enjoy together? Make amazing memories at the Emerald Coast Science Center in Fort Walton Beach! Fun for all ages, the museum is home to over 40 exotic animals, has tons of fascinating, hands-on exhibits, and so many entertaining programs like Planetarium Nights, Discover Science Saturdays, and even Creature Features where you get up close with their animals. With indoor and outdoor exhibits, there's tons of room for the whole family to explore and enjoy while learning about chemistry, engineering, color, light, and more.

The Emerald Coast Science Center strives to inspire and grow a scientifically engaged community. The center has promoted STEAM education and public outreach in Okaloosa County and beyond for over 30 years and is committed to serving children and families through excellent STEM programming and exhibits.

In the museum, patrons will find a facility for children and families with touchable, workable exhibits that teach about natural phenomena and basic scientific principles. The center displays over 45 exhibits within 8,000 square feet of indoor space and 2 acres of property. We’re also only the third museum in the entire country to house SMALLab Learning--a groundbreaking exhibit that places you at the center of the action. SMALLab is an embodied learning environment where every learner is up, moving, and collaborating. Movement is tracked by motion capture cameras, allowing you to walk around on a 15-foot by 15-foot playing field to complete activities. Patrons work together to solve puzzles, create stories and character plots, learn about the world, and paint digital masterpieces with this groundbreaking programming.

Discover the element of surprise at the Emerald Coast Science Center.

Exhibits

Creation Station from 11:30 a.m. to 130 p.m. Come create and decorate your own popsicle stick scarecrow. General admission pricing applies.

Robotics
Check out our Robotics exhibits! You'll find all sorts of interactive robotic units, including a health robot, underwater exploration units, and so much more!

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth
Learn about a variety of dinos: large, small, and in between with our dinosaur skull replicas. Check out Orboot to learn where these creatures lived, what they looked like, and more.

Engineering, Physics, and Electricity
How can an airflow create a vortex? How fast does wind blow during a hurricane? Experiment with our Augmented Reality Wall, air cannon, Hurricane Simulator, and more to find the answer! Come play with our newest exhibit: an interactive Pendulux!

Color and Light
Come see these exhibits to learn more about the properties of color and light! From using the light spectrum to create music, a whirling kaleidoscope of light color and modern technology are on display in the center. Bonus--see if you can create a bubble bigger and taller than you in our Big Bubbles exhibit to explore the light and color properties of bubbles. You can also create a colorful masterpiece on our giant LiteZilla courtesy of the Okaloosa Tourist Development Council or create your own tune on our Music Table courtesy of UWF.

sciPad featuring SMALLab Learning Courtesy of Impact100 of Northwest Florida
Ever wondered how much fun it would be to have your entire family play on a room-sized iPad? Join us at the Emerald Coast Science Center to experience just that with sciPad! sciPad ft. SMALLab is an embodied learning environment where every person is up, moving, and collaborating. Movement is tracked by motion capture cameras, allowing you to walk around on a 15-foot by 15-foot playing field to complete activities.

​Your family can work together to solve puzzles, create stories and character plots, study the world, and paint digital masterpieces with this innovative programming. With SMALLab, our classroom becomes the fraction, letter, molecule, paintbrush, or playing piece in hundreds of educational activities—all so much fun kids don’t even realize they’re learning!

This super fun, super interactive method allows children to collaborate and learn as they move. With lessons over science, language, arts, and more, SMALLab lessons give families a unique, innovative way to learn together. SMALLab programming can be tooled to fit a wide variety of age ranges, from age 2 to 102—so everyone in the family will enjoy going beyond the screen and immersing themselves in science with SMALLab.
​
Be sure to bring your socks—we throw shoes and most of the rules to the side when SMALLab is involved. Playing in socks allows us to keep our SMALLab mat in good shape, and kids always have fun kicking off their shoes and playing in SMALLab. Words simply can’t describe this cutting-edge exhibit, so experience the magic of SMALLab firsthand!

Space
Explore the final frontier! Check out our rotating NISE Network kits in the main gallery space. Explore the universe and learn things like how stars form from the dust and gas that exists in space clumping together, discover how gravitational attraction in space works, and more. Check out life on Mars with Orboot, and With the Reach Across the Stars app, you can discover female scientists that have made epic discoveries in the universe in numerous fields of study.Looking for more space exploration? Be sure to check out our Planetarium Nights the first and third Thursdays of the month.

Sea Turtle Sanctuary
This exhibit, courtesy of the Okaloosa Tourist Development Council, allows guests to learn more about sea turtles, their health, and conservation efforts while providing a firsthand look at what it is like for sea turtles in our region. You can help out our "turtles" as you try your hand at becoming a sea turtle conservationist, dive in and play as a sea turtle on an app, and don't miss our interactive sea floor! Guests can even track turtles with assistance from the Sea Turtle Conservancy.

Emerald Coast Ecosystem Exhibit
This exhibit, courtesy of the Okaloosa County Tourist Development Council, features brand new exhibits in 2020! The Ecosystem Room houses interactive elements including a sensory pool noodle ocean, watershed tilt table, and a state-of-the-art augmented reality sandbox where guests can create watershed models and experiment with virtual rainfall. All of these exhibits contain information regarding our watershed, our local waterways, and our indigenous species found in theses waterways.

Mini Makers and Experimenters Lab
Your youngest explorers will go wild for our new lab! All activities and exhibits in our Mini Makers Lab are geared toward preschool-aged learners. With numerous hands-on activities, your toddlers will have a blast learning and exploring the basics of STEM. This room is courtesy of the Okaloosa County Tourist Development Council.

Participation in Museum Day is open to any tax-exempt or governmental museum or cultural venue on a voluntary basis. Smithsonian magazine encourages museum visitation, but is not responsible for and does not endorse the content of the participating museums and cultural venues, and does not subsidize museums that participate.