My parents live in Scottsdale and have library cards, so they check out Culture Passes for us when we visit so that we can check out cool stuff for free. I would have been seriously disappointed with this science museum had my husband and I paid $18 per person for adult admission. Don't get me wrong, we saw a ton of happy kids enjoying and interacting with the exhibits. But as educated, childless adults, we were bummed that a number of the hands-on exhibits were out of order and that the videos that accompanied many of the exhibits were really, really old. Come on, y'all! Partner with the local universities and have student teams work together to generate new video content of relevant professors and the work being done in their labs!
My husband and I visit science musuems wherever we travel, and I hate to say that Arizona Science Center is one of the worst we have visited. The atrium entrance is absolutely beautiful, but many of the other rooms in the museum have low ceilings and thus feel very cramped.
I should try to find some nice things to say to close out the review. We got a kick out of the exhibit about the process of digesting food because we got to "walk in" a stomach that make burping and farting noises. The exhibit about why humans sneeze was also really funny because the hands-on component involved stuffing soft balls into a huge plastic nose that were "sneezed" out subsequently. The enclosed outdoor patio with the Rube Goldberg water exhibits was super fun to play with.