The Museum of Life and Science is a place for learners to develop, build, and practice their scientific and critical thinking skills. Science is best learned through active practice and engagement with scientific behaviors, including exploration and discovery, gathering and interpreting data, forming inferences, and testing ideas. The Museum provides materials, spaces, and experiences that encourage active investigation, curiosity, and inquiry. We create experiences to promote a sustained, ongoing journey of critical thinking and discovery.

We value questions over answers, processes over content, collaboration over competition, and experience over memorization. We encourage questioning, argument, trial and error, imagination, creativity, and open-ended exploration in every facet of what we do.

Curiosity, wonder, awe, and inquiry are at the heart of what we do. The best way to learn information and facts about science and what it means to all of us is through self-directed inquiry. To do this, we aim to create learning environments, spaces, and programs that foster and support individual learners’ journeys. We believe in providing everyone with an ideal climate and setting to learn science. Learners should feel safe, comfortable, and empowered.

We believe scientific literacy and critical thinking are central to maintaining a healthy democratic society. Science is both a community and a tool. When you understand how to use it, it is empowering on its own and has the potential to enrich your life.