Experience life After Dark, an evening series exclusively for adults that mixes cocktails, conversation, and playful, innovative science and art events.
Not a theater, cabaret, or gallery, After Dark contains aspects of all three. Each evening showcases a different topic—from music to sex to electricity—but all include a cash bar and film screenings, plus an opportunity to play with our hundreds of hands-on exhibits. Join us and mingle with inventive scientists, artists, musicians, programmers, and designers. Enjoy live performances, provocative films, interesting music, cutting-edge technology, unexpected extravaganzas, and more, depending on each evening's lineup. Leave the kids at home and meet friends or take a date. Where else can you find an intellectually stimulating playground for adults—with free parking?
FIRST THURSDAYS OF THE MONTH, 6:00 P.M.–10:00 P.M.
The museum will be closed from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. If you arrive before 5:00 p.m., please be sure to keep your admissions sticker and receipt for re-entry to the museum at 6:00 p.m.
After Dark features adult-oriented events: Guests must be at least 18 to attend.
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Dirt
Dig into soil science and get the dirt on everything from mushrooms to meteorites.
Exploratorium physicist and Mars expert Paul Doherty pilots a tour of extraterrestrial dirt found as far away as Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and as near as your own home. Fellow staff scientist Bryce Johnson steers us through San Francisco Bay’s sediments and Exploratorium biologist Karen Kalumuck reveals the creeping, crawling world inside a rotting log. And in an edible approach to our theme, mushroom farmers from Back to the Roots share secrets to growing gourmet mushrooms from coffee grounds.
Dirt also features compost demonstrations, urban farming explorations, special films, and an exhibition of historic color photographs documenting the end of the Dust Bowl era.
Photo Credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, ID# LC-USF35-338.