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

Want to understand how to predict when the good waves are coming to your shore? It helps to start with the basics behind the formation of ocean waves.

Skilled listeners share their secrets.

Learn about scale and structure with eight great activities designed for the elementary classroom.

Get down and dirty with the surprising science of soil.

Where is the Center of the Universe? Here, there, and everywhere.

Make your own refracting telescope from a pair of reading glasses.

Check out ColorFest, a two-month extravaganza celebrating color at the museum from July 1 to September 5.

Study ultraviolet radiation from the sun and other sources using UV beads.

What happens to sandy or fine-grained soils when an earthquake shakes them up? Try this simple activity to find out.

Heat-trapping gases play a major role in polar climate change.

Want to see where the biggest quakes have been this week? Follow a few of the links below to see what's shaking in your neighborhood and around the world.

Download a PDF file with step-by-step instructions for doing your own cow's eye dissection.

Explore the places, people, tools, and ideas behind the origins of matter, the universe, and life itself.

Join us as we crunch our way through everything from our San Francisco sourdough to Injera and Pugliese.

Explore our 2000 guide to the solar max, the period in the solar cycle during which the number of sunspots is greatest.

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

By passing the winter frozen as solid as a holiday fruit cake, the wood frog breaks all rules. Scientists hoping to preserve human organs are paying close attention.

Get a taste of how the earth's plates move.

The Exploratorium is taking it outside to explore natural and human-made phenomena in and around San Francisco. Look for new episodes twice each month.

Dig into the succulent science of making things grow.

You can make a light painting with a light source, a darkened room, and a digital camera.

Why is the bicycle the most efficient way to travel? Explore bicycle science and culture.

Three auditory illusions created by students from the Center for Electronic Art.

Use the Science Journal mobile app to investigate the light around you.

Grow spikes of crystals in the sun.

Professional development resources for teacher educators.

Learn about origami, make your own paper, and find out the best way to fold a paper airplane.

Explore gluten, the substance that gives bread its structure.

Listen to internationally recognized authorities on human thought and behavior, including Temple Grandin and Paul Ekman.

Explore the scientific, historical, and cultural context behind a new opera about the first atomic bomb test.

Make an observatory to see the amazing colors in bubbles!

Who lives in the Arctic, and how did they get there?

Stepping is rhythmic movement that uses the body as an instrument.

Dig into the succulent science of making things grow.

Build cantilevers from bamboo garden poles and drinking straws and discover the importance of scale.

Explore the surrounding sounds that everyday objects make. Build a noise contraption from these objects, then add a PicoCricket to automate your contraption. Finally, add a light sensor and program your sound automata to "play" when triggered by light.

Think you have a lot in common with a kiwi fruit? Genetically speaking, you do.

Make a photographic image without a camera!

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

Use dominoes to model a nerve cell's transmission of a signal

Scratch Film, also known as Direct Animation, is the process of drawing and scratching designs directly onto film.

Explore an interactive map.

Darkening polar skies often bring beautiful light displays.

Rube Goldberg-inspired cause and effect contraptions using everyday materials and found objects.

Heat-trapping gases play a major role in polar climate change.

Learn about the inner workings of a cell through this interactive exhibit.

Art/science teams explore the underlying systems that give the San Francisco Bay Area its unique character.

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