In 1982, Mary O'Connor and Sue Trotter, fellow Junior Leaguers and longtime neighbors in Brookwood Hills, decided to pursue a science museum for Atlanta.

The Metropolitan Foundation is a nonprofit corporation guided by a 31-member board of directors headed by Robert W. Scherer, the Georgia Power Co. chairman and chief executive officer.

After years of planning and fundraising SciTrek-The Science & Technology Museum of Atlanta finally opened its doors to the public on October 29, 1988.

Even after suffering a 24% drop-off in visitors between 1993 through 1999, SciTrek decided during the 1999 fiscal year to retire its long-standing debt of $3 million.

By June 2001, the State of Georgia, which had provided an annual $175,000 grant to SciTrek, threw in an additional $300,000 to help keep the museum afloat.

In December 2003, SciTrek named technology industry executive, Scott Coleman, as president and CEO, replacing Massey, who left to join a lobbying firm.

Other exhibits focused on electricity generation in unusual ways, creating energy from magnetism, "freezing shadows", or stepping inside a kaleidoscope.

[citation needed] SciTrek's Challenger Learning Center was a $1.7 million, simulated NASA space shuttle mission which opened to the public in January 2003.

SciTrek's name, intellectual property, computers, materials from the Edison exhibit, science education curriculum and programs were transferred to Valdosta State University in 2005.