The Museum's website says:
Looking for something that’s not here?
That seems to be a very bad joke! “something that’s not there” ??? OH, YES! Politeness towards visitors! In our case: a group of Austrian students.

The Museum's website also says:
Try our helpful Guest Services staff.
We could not find this type of people in the Liberty Science Museum.

I am an Austrian teacher, and back home an American friend who lives in Austria very dearly recommended us to visit the Liberty Science Center.

I am VERY SORRY to say, that this was the weirdest experience I have had in years visiting a museum with my students, who are between 17 and 19 years old. Part of the tickets were stickers, which the gentleman at the ticket box asked us to put on our clothes. BUT: He did not say a single word that the whole group MUST stay together all the time while in the museum. It is actually NOT mentioned on the museum's website that students and chaperones have to stick together all the time. IF I had read that on the website, I would from the very beginning have decided not to come here.
As we were not familiar with this policy, we told the students how long we would stay – and allowed them to explore the museum on their own. None of them was alone, they all went in small groups. After some time, my colleague and I - who had met by chance on the second floor – were addressed by a lady in a blue shirt telling us, that the students had to stay with “the chaperone” all the time. She had come across three of them in and aisle and ordered them to stay with me. We went into the exhibition area together – and there I allowed them to see what they were interested in AND told them please to behave.

After a while, a gentleman in a red shirt addressed me saying that my students MUST stay with me all the time while in the museum. I tried to explain, that they are not children. They are between 17 and 19 years old! His answer was, that nevertheless I had to chaperone them, and he took me out to the aisle again, where he and the “blue lady” and another gentleman in a red dress had already chased 11 of my students together on two benches. A gentleman in a black shirt, who later turned out to be a manager called Bryan made it very clear to me, that the students were misbehaving and that if that could not be stopped we would have to leave. I wanted him to point out those to me who had misbehaved. He wanted to know, whether all were here. This was not the case, five were still somewhere else in the building. I found them shortly afterwards. While we were standing there being treated like children by Bryan, small kids ran along the isle – and Bryan did not protest against that in any way. BUT: he still complained, that our students had misbehaved. Although I asked him several times to say WHO that was, he was unable to point out any of them, and finally ended up with the argument: there are still some missing.

Before we left, we filled in forms at the ticket office in which visitors are invited to express their opinion of the museum. We made it quite clear there, what we thought of the treatment we had experienced. The lady there tried to be helpful and said she would call the manager. AGAIN Bryan turned up and made it clear again, that students in a group – even if they are 17-19 years old, have to stay with their chaperone. As now all were present, we asked him once more to point out the person(s) who had misbehaved – which he could not do!

There is one more interesting aspect I would like to draw your attention to: Before we left, I wanted to find out, what the prices were for the IMAX theater. The theater charges $ 7.50 for children and $ 9 for adults. According to the museum policy, children are people who are between 2 and 13 years old. So they obviously regard 17 year olds as adults when it comes to charge them for the IMAX, but them regard them as children, when it comes to walking around in the building.

As a consequence of this adventure, I suggest, that future groups refrain from visiting the museum.

If you're going here out of a classroom environment, it's not worth the money. There are a few "fun" items for kids and youngsters but they are limited. Many of the "experiments" you can do are in the classroom and the movie is another $8 "imax" advertisement you'd think you might get to see for the price of admission. The aquarium and wildlife areas are practically barren and uninformative, providing little cohesion to the point of what the science center would do. The parts about energy were convoluted - instead of basics there were some odd contraptions that dealt with the tides, steamboats and more. Without a tour guide that could do a good job this stuff is all difficult to understand, as is the need for the first floor's "skyscrapers" area. It's almost as though very little thought went into the substance of the exhibits and everything went into the "grand finale" on the fourth floor, the "Race Exhibit." I thought it might discuss the origin of species, missing link, etc. Instead it was a half floor dedicated to racism and inequality suffered by African Americans. I was shocked to find this out of place, civil rights diatribe take up half the fourth floor and clearly the most money spent on it with at least a half dozen large screens showing various black professors and students talking about slavery and racism and lack of equality for black people (there is virtually nothing regarding racism towards any other race, which would have been equally out of place). What does this have to do with science? The white only drinking fountains? That is social studies. I'm guessing this has more to do with local politicians than anything else and is a very sad statement for what I thought was going to be a science tour without the public social commentary.

Disappointment

I have visited the LSC twice since it re-opened after extensive renovation and I visited several times before it. On this latest occasion I was at their camp-in so we spent many hours going through everything in detail. It just doesn’t seem to be well run. While visually interesting, they rely extensively on technological displays (touch screens, etc.) and on each of my visits (months apart) about half the technology didn’t work correctly or at all. And the presentation of the explanatory and educational material accompanying the displays is poor, often underwhelming, confusing or useless. It wasn’t interesting enough for the kids nor informative for the adults. Given the effort and expense of the renovation, which closed the entire facility for years, the result is very disappointing. Unless you or your kids are very patient science fans, I would not recommend that it’s worth it.

PROS
-- IMAX theatre is awesome – one of the best
-- Skyscraper exhibit is cool and the kids liked the I-Beam attraction
-- Everything is new and great visually
-- Topics covered by exhibits are interesting and have great potential

CONS
-- Way too much stuff doesn’t work well (over multiple visits)
-- Most exhibits don’t live up to their potential and are poorly explained
-- They have fewer real hands-on exhibits than they did before the renovation; they rely too much of touch screens now
-- Not well run. Staff seemed disorganized and contradicted each other. Some stationed were closed because staff didn’t show up
-- Camp-in was a dud

I went to the Liberty Science Center with my 6 year old and 3 year old sons. We had a great time! We arrived at 9:00 a.m. before the crowds arrived and headed straight for the skyscraper exhibit on the 1st floor (fun for young kids, I'd say under 10 years). The second floor had a science demonstration while we ate the lunches we brought from home. (The cafeteria had some items that my kids may have eaten but it was expensive and had a limited selection of foods). The 3rd & 4th floors are really worth the trip(geared for all ages especially 10 year olds and older)- there was an animal demonstration on the 3rd floor and a water exhibit that the boys got to get their hands wet in (bring hand sanitizer). Overall, the cost is high but I paid only $5 because I'm a teacher and had my id with me. It was fun and we will definitely go again. The only negative was that some parts to exhibits were not functioning but overall, lots of hands-on activities and worth the money. (We skipped the I-Max theater so I have no information for you on this.)