Future Worlds' science content is undergirded by several crosscutting concepts, including cause-and-effect and systems modeling. It engages learners in sustainability science issues that involve predicting and explaining the impacts of environmental events.

Future Worlds focuses on three aspects of sustainability: energy, water, and food. The exhibit's design aims to confront learners’ everyday ideas about the tradeoffs of micro-scale and macro-scale environmental decisions and assess the impacts of their own choices.

Future Worlds is an educational resource as well as a research platform for investigating AI-driven learning technologies. Pilot tests in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences have shown that learners are highly engaged in sustainability learning and problem solving.