Fernbank Science Center

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The Fernbank Science Center is a museum, classroom, and woodland complex located at 156 Heaton Park Drive, northeast of Atlanta, Georgia. The Fernbank Science Center is owned and operated by DeKalb County School System. The nearby Fernbank Museum of Natural History is a private non-profit organization that is separate from, but works closely with, the Science Center.

The Fernbank Science Center opened in December of 1967, and is an educational institute and part of the public school system of DeKalb County. It provides programs for science education of local students. The planetarium and Fernbank Observatory telescope are open for public shows on special occasions.

The Science Center offers many public programs meant to entertain as well as educate (see edutainment), promote an understanding of science and technology, and communicate to everyone the harmony and order of the natural world. Fernbank contains hundreds of exhibits, including dinosaur skeletons, and an electron microscope lab. The center houses an authentic Apollo spacecraft from the unmanned Apollo 6 Saturn V test, which was launched the same day as the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., who is entombed about three miles southwest of the Fernbank Science Center. In addition, Fernbank is home to a planetarium with a 70-foot-diameter projection dome.

The Science Center also contains botanical collections, including tropical and succulent plants housed in two Lord & Burnham greenhouses at 1256 Briarcliff Road. They are Victorian in style, built around 1920 and renovated in 1988, and have housed the center's collections since 1989. The Robert L. Staton Rose Garden (at 767 Clifton Road) contains over 1,300 roses. The 65 acre (263,000 m²) Fernbank Forest is an undisturbed, mature mixed hardwood forest with labeled trees, shrubs, ferns, and wild flowers.