Science Museum of Western Virginia

The Science Museum of Western Virginia inspires science appreciation throughout the region and offers one of the most unique event settings in all of Western Virginia. The museum features the Living River & Touch Tank and a Bug Zoo. Our expanded galleries -- Healthy Bodies, Healthy Earth, and How It Works! -- feature exciting, interactive exhibits. We also offer an innovative Maker Lab and The Bubble, a multisensory space for preschoolers. Coming soon--our renovated Hidden Garden is an indoor pollinator garden with butterflies, caterpillars, and flowering plants that thrive in Virginia. History Established in 1970. The Museum was created in 1970 by a small group of teachers and community volunteers that recognized the need for an informal educational facility to motivate and assist students in learning about science, especially the natural sciences. This group secured a small amount of space in a multi-cultural building in a residential neighborhood called South Roanoke and soon set about collecting and exhibiting specimens, mostly in a diorama format. The second phase of the Museum's history began in the late 1970's when the city of Roanoke and a small group of civic leaders considered reviving Roanoke's downtown market district--which had succumbed to urban blight--by renovating a large five-story warehouse as a multi-cultural center. When it opened at Center in the Square in 1983, the Museum featured professionally designed and fabricated galleries and has continued to grow and change through the years.