Science museums have roots in the 19th century and before, but the science center field is largely a product of the 1960s and 1970s, a time of social ferment in the United States and Europe. Against a backdrop of the Cold War and its "space race," student uprisings, anti-war protests, and voter registration campaigns, curriculum reform efforts engaged scientists like Frank Oppenheimer. The hands-on approach to science education they were pioneering, and the populist spirit of the times, soon gave rise to visions of a new-style museum.

The Pacific Science Center (one of the first to call itself a "science center" rather than a museum) opened in a Seattle World's Fair building in 1962. The Smithsonian Institution invited visitors into a new Disocvery Room in its National Museum of Natural History in Washingotn, DC, where they could touch and handle formerly off-limits specimens. In 1969, Oppenheimer's Exploratorium opened in San Francisco, and the Ontario Science Centre opened outside of Toronto. By the early 1970s, COSI, the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio, had run its first "camp-in."

It didn't take long for these new-style museums to band together for mutual support. In 1971, 16 museum directors gathered to discuss the possibility of starting a new association--one more specifically tailored to their needs than the existing American Association of Museums. The Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC) was formally established in 1973.