Museums & Galleries in Oak Lawn

After health, the most important thing parents want for their children is a good education, and that means learning inside the classroom and out. But if learning becomes simply memorizing facts in a textbook, it quickly turns into a chore, leading kids to lives of mindless entertainment and ignoring the last 12 mystery ingredients on junk-food labels.

To combat this, The Children’s Museum in Oak Lawn exposes children to the arts, sciences, and industry with a series of engaging exhibits that uphold the standards set by the Illinois State Board of Education. These exhibits occupy every inch of their two-story facility, giving kids hands-on experience with concepts such as cause and effect, gravity, and motion. Painting and dress-up theaters cultivate healthy imaginations, and the infant tummy-time zone allows even the tiniest guests to flex their neck muscles and reach stuffed-animal friends. In addition to daily visitors, The Children’s Museum in Oak Lawn welcomes school field trips and family birthday parties.

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.

A 7,100-square-foot sculpture garden is only the tip of the iceberg at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. In fact, the garden is also the tip of the museum—it’s on the facility’s roof. Designed by Cesar Pelli, the sprawling building encompasses an eclectic array of modern works, including a 5,000-item permanent collection that incorporates pieces ranging from Frida Kahlo’s works to John Coplans’ black-and-white self portrait, which shows only his feet.

A rotating lineup of temporary exhibits complements the permanent core, and a regular event schedule features films, talks, and performance by masters of their craft. Visitors can browse art books and craft jewelry in the museum store, where all purchases support artists and designers more simply than training to become a muse.

Since opening in 1921, The Phillips Collection has nurtured an exquisite collection of modern and impressionist works by canvas camouflaging masters such as Renoir, Rothko, Bonnard, O'Keeffe, van Gogh, and Degas. In celebration of its 90th anniversary, the internationally recognized Dupont Circle landmark will orchestrate a rich bouquet of programs, exhibitions, and events throughout 2011 before blowing out the 90 candles blazing on its birthday cake.

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.