Our Mission:
The Connecticut Science Center is dedicated to inspiring lifelong learning through interactive and innovative experiences that explore our changing world through science. We strive to create an engaging and sustainable science center that serves families and schools and significantly impacts student and adult learning in Connecticut. We seek to develop the minds of future thinkers and inventors who will compete in the ever-expanding global marketplace for technology and innovation. And we endeavor to create a Connecticut workforce that meets the projected growth of jobs in science-related fields.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility
The Connecticut Science Center is an influential and exemplary leader in creating equitable engagement and access to STEM learning opportunities and STEM careers. We realize this vision with the proficiency and experience of our diverse team, supported by research and insight from our community and partners within the STEM Ecosystem. We share the advantages that STEM affords to individuals and communities as beneficiaries.
History:
Immediately upon founding in 2001 as the Connecticut Center for Science & Exploration, a core team of supporters embarked on an extensive planning process to create a new educational destination at Hartford’s Adriaen’s Landing economic development initiative.
In December 2003, a Board of Trustees was established, staff hired and significant state funding was authorized to formally begin the work of building the Connecticut Science Center. Fundraising began in 2003 and a master plan was adopted in 2004. The massive construction project began in January 2006 and was completed in June 2009, when it opened to the public. Thanks to hundreds of supporters, the Science Center successfully completed a $165 million capital campaign, with an unprecedented private commitment of over $40 million.
The Connecticut Science Center represents a bold new step to help reassert Connecticut’s role as a leader in research, discovery and invention. With the urgency of international competition for science and technology talent, as well as the imminent demand for Connecticut’s schools to meet new science education standards, the Connecticut Science Center is a vital new resource at a critical time.
How do you get people interested in science? ENGAGE THEM!
With more than 165 hands-on exhibits, a state-of-the-art 3D digital theater, four educational labs, plus daily programs and events, the Connecticut Science Center offers endless exploration for children, teens, and adults. From physics to forensics, geology to astronomy, visitors have the sciences at their fingertips.
The implications for Connecticut's science education are promising. The Science Center offers exciting tools to help educators and parents bring textbooks to life. Creating unforgettable experiences with science motivates students and visitors of all ages to enthusiastically embrace science at school, at home, and in their communities.
With an attraction of this magnitude, exhibits rivaling the most unique in the world, programs with the potential to become national models, partnerships with a range of educational organizations, and involvement from global business leaders and benefactors, the Science Center is Connecticut's premier destination for informal science learning, and is well on its way to becoming the state's foremost Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) resource.
