NOAA Inouye Regional Center

I’m a nerd and this place fascinates me. I recently got the opportunity to tag along on a field trip with my daughter and I think I had a better time than she did! It’s rather small, so you could tour the whole facility in about an hour.
The facility is across the way from the Pacific Aviation Museum. Your tour starts off in the lobby in where you circle around the large «sphere». Various images are projected on the sphere including the topography of earth versus Mars, the direction of the winds, and what I thought was cool, is they show you real time how many and where all aircrafts are flying.
After that the kids are taken into a room with a large floor map and quizzed on world geography. Then we were directed into the «augmented sand box» room. Here the kids got to play in a sand box as the change in topography and elevation were projected on a large screen in front of them.
Our last stop was the tsunami information Center where the kids learned about where tsunamis come from and the warning signs. They got to play with a «wave box» and sit in a conference room overlooking the 24 hour tsunami surveillance center.
They just opened the facility for people to tour so there isn’t too much to see, but the things you do get to learn are interesting. There’s a cafeteria to grab a meal or snack. There’s also a library and lots of pamphlets on different topics related to weather and all things oceanography related. If you’re into things like that, you might want to visit while you’re on Ford Island. Speaking of Ford Island, you need military access to get here. I don’t know how admission works since we were invited on a field trip sponsored by Geographical information services. I’m sure if you give them a call expressing interest, you can get in.