An AIRMAZING Adventure Powered by Wind, Motion, and Discovery
What if you could see air, feel wind, and use it to launch, lift, spin, and soar? At the Magic City Discovery Center, you can do exactly that in our Air Forces Gallery, where air becomes an exciting force you can experiment with, control, and explore.

Air is everywhere, yet it’s often invisible. In the Air Forces Gallery, we make this powerful natural resource visible, tangible, and unforgettable through hands-on exhibits that invite visitors of all ages to move their bodies, test ideas, and think like scientists and engineers.

Why Air Matters
Earth’s air is made up of about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and small amounts of other gases like carbon dioxide and neon. Air can even hold water, which we experience as humidity. Although air feels light, it pushes down on us all the time, creating air pressure, which is strongest at sea level and weaker at higher elevations.
Air also carries life. Tiny living organisms called bioaerosols float through the atmosphere, and wind shapes weather, ecosystems, and renewable energy systems around the world. The strongest wind gust ever recorded reached 253 miles per hour, and even right here in North Dakota, winds have reached 93 mph in recent years!

Learning Through Movement, Play, and Experimentation
The Air Forces Gallery is designed around open-ended exploration, meaning there’s no single “right” way to play. Visitors choose, move, make, and test objects of different shapes and sizes while discovering how air behaves.
As children experiment, they naturally follow the scientific process:
Asking questions
Making predictions
Testing ideas
Observing results
Adjusting and trying again
This kind of learning builds confidence, persistence, and curiosity!

What You’ll Experience in the Air Forces Gallery
Giant Whoosh & Junior Whoosh: Our iconic pneumatic experience introduces the power of moving air as foam balls shoot through tubes overhead. Kids quickly learn how air pressure, speed, and distance affect motion.
Air Fountains: Instead of water, these fountains use air! Visitors lift balls and objects using streams of air, experiment with tubes and ports, and explore the Bernoulli Principle, which is the same science that helps airplanes fly.

Tube Tunnels: Design your own horizontal air maze using tubes, corners, and connectors. As air pushes foam balls through the system, kids discover how distance, turbulence, and pressure loss affect movement!

Bernoulli Basketball: Can you guide a floating beach ball through rings using only air? This challenge helps visitors understand airflow, pressure differences, and control, all while having a blast.

Tennis Ball Launcher: Using muscle power and a pulley system, visitors compress air to launch tennis balls toward the ceiling. It’s an exciting way to explore stored energy, force, and motion.

Parachute Drop: Send parachutes high into the air and watch them float gently down. This exhibit demonstrates air resistance and drag, showing why parachutes are such powerful, life-saving tools.

Windmills & Wind Turbines: Design, build, and test your own turbine. Change blade angles and shapes to see how wind can be transformed into renewable energy.

Mist Tornado: Create and control a swirling vortex of vapor to explore how tornadoes form and how air behaves during extreme weather events.

Hover Track: Using a blanket of air similar to an air hockey table, objects glide smoothly across the surface, demonstrating reduced friction and airflow dynamics.

In the Air! Spin Browser: Slow down, speed up, or reverse videos of birds, seeds, airplanes, and insects in flight. This immersive station helps visitors closely observe lift, flow, and formation movement in ways the naked eye can’t.

How Adults Can Support Learning in Air Forces
Adults play an important role in deepening discovery. Try:
Encouraging kids to change one variable at a time, like air strength or direction
Asking open-ended questions:
What happens if you use a lighter object?
How does shape affect movement?
Why do you think this one moved faster?
Connecting discoveries to real life, like kites, planes, or wind-powered toys

Skills Built Through Air Play
As children explore the Air Forces Gallery, they develop:
Fine motor skills while building, folding, and placing objects
Spatial awareness by tracking objects moving through space
Collaboration and communication through shared problem-solving
Scientific vocabulary and reasoning through hands-on experimentation
The gallery aligns with North Dakota Early Childhood Standards, state science standards, and NGSS, supporting learners from preschool through high school.

Discover the Power of Air at the Magic City Discovery Center
The Air Forces Gallery turns an invisible force into a thrilling, educational adventure. From launching tennis balls to floating basketballs and building wind turbines, every exhibit invites visitors to ask questions, test ideas, and experience the incredible power of air.

Whether you’re a curious kid, a hands-on learner, or an adult rediscovering the joy of experimentation, the Air Forces Gallery proves that air isn’t empty. It’s full of possibilities.

Come explore, experiment, and let your curiosity take flight at the Magic City Discovery Center.