Behind the old Loveman's department store facade, downtown Birmingham hides the McWane Science Center, an aquarium and IMAX theater rolled into one. This state-of-the-art hands-on science center, aquarium, research archive and 250-seat IMAX Dome Theater opened to the public on July 11, 1998. Step inside in your imagination and picture the lower level World of Water exhibit, which showcases more than 50 species of marine and freshwater aquatic life and offers a touch tank with different species of small sharks and rays.
You can almost see visitors peering at shark teeth under a microscope and reading the displays about water pollution. On the second floor the Alabama Collections Center cares for more than 500,000 items from the former Red Mountain Museum and Discovery Place, from precious minerals and fossils to Native American artifacts. Among those treasures are the world’s fourth-largest collection of mosasaurs, an Appalachiosaurus noted as similar to Tyrannosaurus, and Alabama’s state fossil, Basilosaurus cetoides — an 80-foot, or 24-metre, fossil whale.
For smaller children there is the Itty Bitty Magic City exhibit. Above the entrance, the old Loveman's name still marks a department store turned into a place of discovery.