City: Albuquerque, NM

Category: Tours & Attractions

Telephone: (505) 224-8300

Address: 1701 Mountain Road NW

Description: Kids get hands-on at Explora, a children’s museum and learning-and-play center for science, technology, and art. As they try out 250 tabletop activities, designed to be easy for child-sized hands, each child has a unique experience, whether creating their own music in the Shapes of Sounds area to learn about wavelength or placing their hand on the heat camera to see the hot and cold areas. Build a motor or gear shift, and join with others to make a moving contraption in the My Chain Reaction exhibit, perhaps starting with a feather or nail, or dropping a marble in to kick the movement off. Budding inventors love Explora, but children don’t need a special knack for science to have plenty of “Aha!” moments when experimenting in the Water Lab or with light and optics in the Strange Light area. There are also plenty of fun tests with moving air, weaving, density of liquids, colors, construction, and geometry. See how fast cheese molds in the environmental chamber, or touch tarantulas and snakes in the nature area. Short theater performances once a week give life to characters like Marco Polo and Marie Curie. The Knee Hi Sci section is geared to the younger set, and Explora opens an hour early, at 9 a.m., on Monday for toddler time, aimed at under-4s who are accompanied by an adult and including stories and music. Free to tots under 1 year. Open seven days.