Science Museum of Minnesota
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 Location within Minnesota
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| Established | 1907 |
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| Location | 120 W. Kellogg Boulevard, Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States |
| Coordinates | 44°56′33″N 93°5′55″W / 44.94250°N 93.09861°WCoordinates: 44°56′33″N 93°5′55″W / 44.94250°N 93.09861°W |
| Type | Science museum |
| President | Alison Rempel Brown |
| Website | https://www.smm.org |
The Science Museum of Minnesota is an American museum focused on topics in technology, natural history, physical science, and mathematics education. Founded in 1907 and located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution is staffed by over 600 employees and over 1,600 volunteers. The museum's mission statement is to "Turn on the science: Inspire learning. Inform policy. Improve lives."
The museum was formed during a luncheon in 1906 when Charles W. Ames, a prominent businessman, met with a group and discussed "the intellectual and scientific growth of St. Paul". The museum, originally named the St. Paul Institute of Science and Letters, was first located at the St. Paul Auditorium on Fourth Street. In 1927 the museum moved to Merriam Mansion on Capitol Hill, the former home of Col. John Merriam. This move provided more storage space for exhibits. As the Science Museum continued to outgrow its facilities, it moved to the St. Paul-Ramsey Arts and Sciences Center at 30 East Tenth Street. In 1978, this expanded across a skyway into a new space on Wabasha between 10th and Exchange, greatly increasing exhibit space and adding an IMAX Dome(OMNIMAX) cinema.
In the early 1990s, plans for a new and more modern facility, to be located adjacent to the Mississippi River, were formed. With aid from public funding initiatives, the new museum broke ground on May 1, 1997 and opened on December 11, 1999. During the move, 1.75 million artifacts were transported.
There are a number of exhibits that are always in the museum, including:
The new building has a dual-screen IMAX/Omnimax theater with both a wall screen, for IMAX films and other flat presentations, and a rotatable dome, for viewing Omnitheater films, the first such convertible theater in the northern hemisphere. The counterweights for the system were so massive that they had to be put in place before the rest of the building. The theater boasts "the largest permanently installed electronic cinema projector in the world", an advanced computer system to coordinate the theater's facilities, and a complex sound system to accommodate both viewing formats, according to the website.
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