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  • Tinkering at Home

    Try this collection of prompts for tinkering at home.

  • Learning Toolbox: Engage in activities about the science of coronavirus and explore our online resources for learning at home.

  • Explore water's crucial role in food and cooking.

    Science of Water: Food   Explore water's crucial role in food and cooking.

  • Shadow Box exhibit

    Browse our growing online collection of interactive exhibits.

  • Global Climate Change Explorer • Discover how researchers study climate change and examine the latest scientific data.

  • Science Snacks

    Low-cost, teacher-tested activities for the classroom and the curious.

  • Wired Pier Environmental Field Station • Explore weather, air quality, and water conditions from San Francisco Bay

Explore, Play, Discover: Websites, Activities, and More

Dive into websites, activities, apps, and more.

Bottle Blast-Off
Bottle Blast-Off

Make a simple rocket and a rocket launcher, and watch a demonstration of how the finished rocket will fly.

Tiny Pants Photo Challenge
Tiny Pants Photo Challenge

Using a simple trick of perspective, you can dress your friends in tiny cutout clothing.

Braking & Steering
Braking & Steering

How do you stop and steer a bicycle? What forces keep the bicycle from falling over?

Going Up? Get Fit
Going Up? Get Fit

The 18,000-foot Mt. Parinacota presents some fitness challenges for climbers.

Memory Games
Memory Games

Here are some activities that test your memory – and some things you can try to help you remember things better.

How to Build a Spectroscope
How to Build a Spectroscope

Using a spectroscope, you may see that what appears to be a single color of light is really a combination of colors called a spectrum.

Total Solar Eclipse China 2008
Total Solar Eclipse China 2008

View the full eclipse visible from China in 2008.

Braking & Steering
Braking & Steering

How do you stop and steer a bicycle? What forces keep the bicycle from falling over?

Electronic Guidebook Research Project
Electronic Guidebook Research Project
Science of Cooking
Science of Cooking Archive

Explore the science behind food and cooking with recipes, activities, and archived Webcasts.

Clay Bridges
Clay Bridges

In this activity, students make bridges using an oil-based modeling clay (plasticene).

Glitter Globe
Glitter Globe

Make a fantastic toy that shimmers when you shake it.

Big and Tall Bikes

Bike builder David Folch makes supersized bikes for supersized riders.

Why Eclipses Happen
PIE Institute
PIE Institute

Play. Invent. Explore. PIE is a group of educators who share a playful and inventive approach to teaching with technology.

Reggie Watts performing at the Exploratorium

Watch Reggie Watts improvise a song about visiting Mars (or not).

Dot Mixer
Dot Mixer

Produce some pretty mixed-up music with this online interactive.

Skateboard Design
Skateboard Design

Is it just a glorified plank with roller skate wheels on it? Or is it a highly engineered device through which kids have reclaimed the urban landscape, bringing creativity and style back to the sterile asphalt spaces of sprawl?

Which Embryo is Human?
Which Embryo Is Human?

Can you tell the difference between human and nonhuman embryos?

Extended Cinemas 2018

Contemplate the continuum of cinema at After Dark. 

Transit of Venus: The Rarest Eclipse
Transit of Venus 2012 & 2004

Watch Venus travel in front of the Sun. 

Blood
Blood

Learn about the body's vital defense force.

Illusion Songs
Illusion Songs

A collection of auditory illusions found in indigenous folk practices, popular music, and scientific research.

Seismic Slinky
Seismic Slinky

What goes on under the ground during an earthquake? Use a Slinky to model the various seismic waves that make the earth tremble.

An Artist Looks at Life on an Undersea Volcano
What's a painter doing on this scientific research ship?
Millions of people around the world struggle to live with corneal blindness——the loss of sight caused by damage to...
Restoring Sight

Millions of people around the world struggle to live with corneal blindness——the loss of sight caused by damage to the surface of the eye. It's a treatable condition with a clear solution: a corneal transplant. This Science in the City episode highlights the work SightLife is doing to help end corneal blindness by making transplants possible.

Kosher Dill Current
Kosher Dill Current

High energy prices got you down? Discover how pickles can ease your troubles.

Darwin Days
Darwin Days

In February 2009, the Exploratorium hosted Darwin Days, a series of presentations, debates, and discussions exploring the ways scientists continue to learn from and apply their knowledge of evolutionary biology to a broad range of pursuits.

Solar Images
Solar Images

The more astronomy changes, the more it stays the same. This series of images juxtaposes ancient and modern study of the celestial bodies.

The Cold Water Candy Test
The Cold Water Candy Test
Colored Shadows Demo

An additive mixture of light makes for some colorful fun.

Hockey Check Force Calculator
Hockey Check Force Calculator
Desvanecimiento del punto

Si mira fijamente este punto por algunos momentos, éste desaparece.

Quake Basics: Measurements
Quake Basics: Measurements

Richter and beyond

Language Families
Language Families

Where do all the different languages in the world come from?

Memory Party Game
Memory Party Game

Test your memory and compare it with your friends'.

Resonance: Unheard Sounds & Undiscovered Music

Watch contemporary musicians and sound artists perform and discuss their work.

Output of a Solar Cell

Learn to measure the efficiency of a solar cell.

Diving into the Gene Pool
Diving into the Gene Pool

A multifaceted exhibition that explored genetics and the Human Genome Project from a variety of perspectives from April 8 to September 4, 1995.

Cloud Chamber

See evidence of invisible cosmic rays with Cloud Chamber.

Greenland
Greenland

Land of ice and people

The New Buchanan Mall

Follow the process of revitalizing the Buchanan Mall in the Western Addition.

Jumping to Conclusions

Your brain is always looking for blank spaces and filling them in. Sometimes, your brain leaps to the wrong conclusion. Then you get a surprise!

About Alignments
About Alignments

The Maya were expert sky-watchers, careful observers of the motions of the celestial bodies...

Solar Images
Solar Images

The more astronomy changes, the more it stays the same. This series of images juxtaposes ancient and modern study of the celestial bodies.

Make Your Own Petroglyph
Make Your Own Petroglyph

Try your hand at explaining symbols both modern and ancient, and then make your own.

Collecting soil for Winogradsky Column activity
Bacterial Terrarium

With just mud, paper and an egg, you can grow colonies of multi-hued microbes!

Marble Machines
Marble Machines

A Marble Machine is a creative ball-run contraption, made from familiar materials, designed to send a rolling marble through tubes and funnels, across tracks and bumpers, and into a catch at the end.

Ocean Acidification in a Cup: Introduction

Learn about ocean acidification with this simple experiment.

Mold Terrarium
Mold Terrarium

Watch tiny blue, green, and white molds grow on leftover food.

Frog Chorus
Frog Chorus

Hear audio clips of the ambient sounds of the rain forest at night near Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

Plant Hybrids
Plant Hybrids

If you're a patient gardener, you can grow your own hybrid flowers.

Indicating Electrolysis: Going further

Add a magnet to your solution and see what happens.

Polar Bears
Polar Bears

White-coated Arctic icons, these supreme hunters are under threat

L'illusione del muro del caffé
L'illusione del muro del caffé

Sperimenta interattivamente l'illusione del muro del caffé.

Iron Science Teacher
Iron Science Teacher

Each webcast, the Exploratorium staff and teachers demonstrate their science projects and compete for the title of IRON SCIENCE TEACHER!

Meet the Artist: Carlos Zapata

Meet Carlos Zapata, an automata artist showcased at Curious Contraptions.

Solar Views
Solar Views
Meat is Muscle
Meat is Muscle

What's the difference between white meat and dark meat? Which animals have which and why?

Mars Rovers
Mars Rovers

Meet the robotic explorers that landed on Mars in 2004, and check out their tools and instruments.

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