Exploration Place – The Sedgwick County Science and Discovery Center, Wichita, Kansas – Monday, June 8, 2026
As always, I’ve been enjoying spending time in Wichita with my cousin Meg. Meg has two large breed rescue dogs. They are young – 2 and 4. She does a lot of training with them and has been doing some competing in Rally and Obedience. Last night she was working with them one at a time – working with one in the kitchen, while the other waited outside behind a baby gate. She finished with JJ, the great Pyrenes mix, put her outside the gate, and began to work with the 2 year old greyhound in the kitchen.
Meg and Elmo (the greyhound) were concentrating hard, not noticing anything going on until and I began to laugh. Every command Meg gave Elmo; JJ followed outside the gate. She was just as focused and just because the commands weren’t directed at her, didn’t mean she didn’t carefully obey every single one! These are a couple of really lovely dogs.
We started this morning with an late lunch at Watermark books. I love this bookstore. They have a really interesting selection of great books, wonderful puzzles, and just great book related ‘stuff’. They also have a marvelous café. I had the best grilled cheese sandwich – provolone and bacon. Watermark Books is a Wichita institution, starting in 1977. They also run the ‘Authors in Schools’ fund in conjunction with other partners, which brings authors into the schools, and provide books to kids, in the lower income areas of Wichita. They also put on book clubs and other events, and have a strong online presence. This is one of my favorite places in Wichita.
After running a few errands, we headed for the Exploration Place, the Sedgwick County Science and Discovery Center. This is right on the Arkansas (note – it is pronounced ‘ARE-Kansas’ river, NOT ‘Ark-can-saw!) River, very close to the Keeper of the Plains statue. I’ve just realized that I’ve never written about that – I’m going to have to remedy that shortly.
Anyway, the Exploration Place is very similar in concept to the Science Center in Seattle, WA, or OMSI in Portland, OR, of the Swiss Transportation Museum in Luzern, Switzerland. It’s a place for hands on exploration, especially for kids. The stated mission of the Exploration Place is ‘to inspire deeper interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) for visitors of all ages.’ Meg hadn’t been here yet, so it seemed like the logical choice.
The building architecture itself was fascinating, and there were several exhibits about the process of constructing the building. It’s quite literally right on the river, and the views are spectacular.
One exhibit was a diorama of important Kansas buildings. It had a model train and all kinds of places. It was fascinating to see. My favorite was seeing the Frank Lloyd Wright Allen House. The Allen House is located in Wichita, and I’ve toured it in the past. It’s in a prior post in this blog.
There were lots of hands-on exhibits and there were kids all over them. Other puzzle and shape type puzzles had parents and adults working on them. There was a whole exhibit on the Kansas aquafer, tornados, a wave table, and a really cool river table where you could build sandbars and see how they changed the river flows. Another was a whole wing of Medieval and Knight themed interactive exhibits.
One of my favorites was the aviation room. There was a flight simulator that I really wanted to try, but nobody could pry the children off of it! Another was a seat that rolled around, and when you thought you had it center, you could press a button and it would light up on a screen how you were sitting. I did pretty well, but you can see that I sit slightly right, and slightly back – which is exactly how I usually sit on a horse! Go figure.
All of these were really fun, but the real draw was an exhibit on Finding the Titanic. It was set up like a game for kids, following step by step how it was actually found. For adults, the exhibit was just plain fascinating. I did a little research online after seeing the exhibit.
Robert Ballard, the man who found the Titanic, was born in Wichita, KS, worked as a marine archeologist, and served in the Navy Reserve. In 1982, Ballard had developed a new deep sea underwater robotic craft, the Argo, and he went to the Navy with it. The Navy agreed to fund Ballard’s Titanic search, if he would agree to use it as cover to search for two missing Navy Nuclear Submarines – The Scorpion and the Thresher – which had gone down in the 1960s. He had to first search for the submarines, assess the state of their reactors, and determine the environment impact. He was placed on temporary active duty in the Navy for this purpose. Any extra time he had left, he could look for the Titanic.
The whole story was full of drama, not the least of which was finding the Titanic itself. The exhibit walked the viewer through each step of the process, including maps, an actual original drawing of the debris field, sketches and artifacts.
The most amazing footage was that of the films taken on the bridge of the actual time that Titanic was found. It was riveting to watch. The other interesting thing about it was that the Titanic wreckage was found at nearly the exact time of the Titanic’s sinking.
Also sobering was the list of the names of the passengers and crew who were lost, not only on the Titanic, but also on the Scorpion and the Thresher. On the Titanic, the list of third-class passengers was very long, and was full of immigrant names. First class passengers were significantly fewer.
The whole exhibit was mesmerizing. There were lots of hands-on parts to keep kids busy, but also much to keep adults focused.
I really enjoyed the visit. Pictures of the Titanic Exhibit follow.
