Museums & Galleries in Elmwood Park

Members of the Chicago Academy of Sciences first met in 1857, gathering at the original Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum to share their passion for education and the natural world. Though their meetingplace and library was burnt down in the Great Chicago Fire, their commitment to natural science stood strong. By 1894, the Academy had regrouped and rebuilt their collection in Lincoln Park, using dioramas filled with flora and fauna to create an interactive learning experience.

Today, the museum welcomes guests on a 6.35-acre campus opened in 1999 and filled with exhibits that expand the relationship between the public and nature. In addition to more than 15,000 plant specimens and 22,000 amphibians and reptiles, a wilderness walk takes guests through Midwestern environments, including praries, savannahs, and dunes, all filled with living and preserved animals. Visitors can touch live wildlife from Illinois wetlands and stand in a swirl of 1,000 exotic butterflies and birds in the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven and tropical greenhouse. Outdoor exhibits demonstrate the power of energy-efficient technology with 17,000 square feet of green roofs, the compost coral, rain-barrel ranch, and the restored native prairie made completely out of recycled soda cans.

Marvel in a theme park-esque world dedicated to plastic blocks. See the city of Chicago made entirely out of LEGOs at Miniland. Take the factory tour and learn how LEGO bricks are made (you get one LEGO factory brick to take home). Ride on the back of a green dragon through a medieval castle full of moving characters made entirely of LEGOs, and continue the adventure through a jungle trail. Build your own LEGO cars and buildings, then test them to see if they can withstand earthquakes or set speed records on LEGO roadways. After you take in a movie at the 4-D cinema, or let your little ones spend their energy in physical play before it's time to load up the car.

As Earth places its bid for the 2020 Intergalactic Winter Olympics, today's Groupon invites you to rediscover what makes the universe so neat (hint: pretty much everything). For $30, you get a one-year individual membership (a $65 value) to the Adler Planetarium. You can also get a family membership for $40.

In 1982, the Junior League of Chicago founded the Express-Ways Children's Museum to address concerns about the lack of art exposure and educational opportunities in public schools, ensuring kids had access to science and culture. The league kicked things off with its inaugural exhibit, Getting to Know Hue, within the Chicago Public Library, teaching kids about the world of color using vibrant lights blended with music and literature. From that simple installation grew many more engaging, educational, and fun exhibits. The Express-Way became Chicago Children's Museum and eventually found a permanent home on Navy Pier where it still resides.

The three-floor facility entertains tykes with faux rivers they can cruise down in a canoe, staged paleontological digs, and a live, kid-created circus. The famed skyline exhibit explores the physics that magically hold Chicago's mighty skyscrapers up, exploring how architects came up with the idea to use steel—a rare substance plucked from the mighty armpits of Atlas.

In 1987, Louise Beem and Dorothy Carpenter were early-childhood-education specialists. Based on their combined experience—gained from teaching preschool, founding the College of DuPage's early-childhood-education program, and being grandmothers—the two friends felt that traditional methods of teaching youngsters were less than optimal at the time. Their brainchild, the DuPage Children's Museum, began that same year. The pair designed the museum's colorful exhibits to incorporate interactive and open-ended elements, which they believed more closely matched the way kids learn and naturally process information, a discovery they say has now been corroborated by findings in neuroscience research.

In that vein, the three-story museum engages young neurons with interactive art, math, and science-themed attractions. Giving little hands the chance to explore, the AWESome Electricity exhibit bridges the gap between the electric-powered gadgets and lights families use every day to where all that nonbreakfast-based energy comes from. Kids learn how electricity gets from one place to another and what its basic units are while at play in the museum's signature hands-on spaces. Elsewhere, the Young Explorers exhibit is designed for children aged 2 and under, who develop math skills by learning concepts such as sorting and patterning and express their creativity by experimenting with color and light.

It was the late 1970s, decades after the Holocaust, but neo-Nazis hadn’t disappeared: they threatened to march in Skokie. Realizing the need to combat this kind of intolerance with education, Chicago-area survivors and their supporters banded together to create the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois. This initiative evolved into the museum which was built to honor the memory of Holocaust victims, educate visitors, and explore the human intolerance that continues to lead to genocide today.