Exploration Place
Wichita’s hands-on science center, combining aviation, engineering, Kansas environments, live demonstrations, and changing family exhibitions.
Artwork inspired by Lester Raymer
Exploration Place uses interactive exhibits to make forces, flight, design, weather, anatomy, and regional science tangible. Its Arkansas River building is part of the experience, especially where architecture frames water and sky.
Hands-on does not mean shallow: choose a few mechanisms and test predictions instead of touching every control once. Demonstration and dome-theater schedules can determine the best route.
- Setting
- Wichita, Kansas
- Focus
- Hands-on engineering
- Allow
- 1½–3 hours
Quick guide
- Primary evidence
- Hands-on engineering ↔ Aviation science
- Do not omit
- Dome theater
Four deliberate moves through Exploration Place
- Question first
- Choose one mechanism—flight, airflow, water, forces, or anatomy—and make a prediction before touching controls.
- Repeat
- Change one variable at a time so a hands-on station becomes an experiment rather than a button press.
- Schedule
- Fit dome films and live demonstrations into the route before entering the main exhibit floor.
- River building
- Notice how Moshe Safdie’s architecture frames the Arkansas River, horizon, and changing daylight.
Good to know
If time contracts at Exploration Place, keep the comparison between “Hands-on engineering” and “Aviation science” and remove peripheral stops from the route.
Notice these
- Hands-on engineering
- Aviation science
- Dome theater
- Arkansas River architecture