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The Museum of Science and Industry is located just south of Chicago, and is a fantastic place of learning for people of all ages, as it has a lot of history, but also plenty of hands-on experiences to let you learn and feel your way through. It is one of the options included in the Chicago CityPass (highly recommended) and when you buy admission to the Museum, it comes with many options, including Ticketed Experiences and a tour of the U-505 in the basement…but more on that in a minute.

The museum as a whole has plenty of options before you start adding in the extras that it offers, but among those ticketed/timed experiences are:

• Wired to Wear: A look into how technology is advancing with smart clothes and devices that are helping change our wardrobes for the next generation
• Future Energy Chicago: With the increasing demand for energy consumption, this is a look at how Chicago may approach the evolving revolution to power the future
• Coal Mine Tour: Since 1933 this exhibit has taken people down the mineshaft and along the rails as you explore a true-to-life coal mine, complete with safety regulations and machinery that helped make their jobs easier, like the rock pusher below
  

As for their regular exhibits, that includes:

• Henry Crown Space Center: Spacecrafts litter the room as they look into the missions that took us into space, as well as discussions about future trips to Mars and beyond
  
• The Art of the Bicycle: Bikes have been around for 200+ years, and the evolution of them never stops, as they’ve gone from different sizes wheels to all sorts of materials to help make them lighter and faster. The room is full of tens of bikes, including this speedster:
  
• Tesla Coil: 1.5 Million Volts surge through this tesla coil suspended from the ceiling, and you can hear the energy release all around the museum, as it jumps 10 feet between the grounding rings
• U-505 Submarine: Elusive. Deadly. Captured. This German U-boar was lurking the waters, and the US Navy tracked it down, convincing the Germans that they had sunk the submarine, instead took it and captured it to learn its technologies.
  Now it lives in the museum basement as a sight to explore, learning what life is like inside and how it works, all while discovering its amazing story.
  
• Transportation Gallery: This room is a giant garage of things that have roamed the Earth, from planes to trains and other land cruisers, including a 1903 Wright Flyer replica.