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City Science—The Exhibit

Coming to Chicago or already here? Visit us at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum!
See our museum Web page for directions and hours of operation and to learn about exciting current events and temporary exhibitions.

There’s no substitute for the real thing! Come to the Nature Museum to see the mural up close. If you walk through the kitchen of the City Science house, you'll be face-to-canvas with the mural. On the balcony railing there's a label to spark your own personal "reading" of the mural. Read this label below and then write your own story about the mural. E-mail your story to us at the Nature Museum and we might even post it online!

City Science Mural Label Copy
Chicago is more than just Chicago.
The "Urban Web"
Distant places and people, unseen animals and environments—all are part of the city's daily life. Your shower? A bit of Lake Michigan. Your oatmeal? Cooked over Alaskan gas. Your toilet? Flushing into the Mississippi. Your yogurt? Made from bacteria you can't see in milk from cows you never met. Water mains, electrical cables, gas pipes, and sewers carry resources and waste. Trucks and trains deliver food and cart off garbage. Countless systems—some made by humans, some made by nature—forge countless connections that you depend on every day.

The City Science exhibit at the Nature Museum is a two-story house built to show how we're connected to the environment even when we're at home! Gain a whole new perspective on nature when you tour this 3,000 square foot home.

Peering through the curtains of the house, can you see some of the science that makes our home lives possible?

The infrastructure has been peeled away so you can meet the creatures that inhabit every city home. You will understand that every time you flip a switch or turn up the heat in your house you are tapping into energy production processes being conducted hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

In this photo, two young visitors learn how water, electricity and natural gas are brought into our homes and used.

City Science provides an opportunity to investigate the relationships that link urban living to the natural world. It attempts to make visible the many (typically invisible) systems (pipes and wires) and flows of energy, food and other products to and from the country and the city.

For example, where does the water come from that feeds this fire hydrant? How many different city systems (electricity, telephone, natural gas, water, sewage, cable TV) are represented by the glowing lights on the city grid?

See if you can find a second City Science mural when you enter the exhibit.

The museum asked two local graffiti artists to paint the title of the exhibit on this storm drain pipe hallway that leads you to the exhibit basement.

And when you visit the City Science exhibit, be sure to stop by the kitchen for one of our exciting Science Kitchen shows.

Offered daily at 10, 11, Noon, and 2 p.m., the shows engage visitors in memorable demonstrations about the physics and chemistry that enable our daily lives.

Show titles include Air Head Science, What's My Reaction?, Newton's News, and Food Forensics.