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

Listen in on conversations with Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, and others in Speaking of Music Rewind.

Find out why biodiversity benefits plants and people alike.

Listen to bird songs and try to figure out which are songs, which are companion calls, and which are alarms.

What happens to a cylinder when you scale it up?

Leonardo's famous painting is used in an interesting perceptual experiment.

What's really going on when you bake? Find out.

Technological developments have changed how we view Earth. See LandSat images and learn more about our home planet.

Stories about science, art, and human perception—from 1998. 

The majority of Barrow residents are indigenous people who live both traditional and modern lives

Activities and History

One man's journey into blindness

The Antarctic food web is the simplest on the planet, and krill are at its hub.

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

These tricky pictures shift and change as you look at them.

Find out why people who love birthday parties should move to Mercury.

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?

Learn how eyes work, and watch a cow's eye dissection. Then follow step-by-step instructions to do a cow's eye dissection yourself.

Use printable images from our time-lapse movies to make flipbooks–handheld animations that you can make at home.

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

Stand outside on a sunny day with a watch in your hand, and you can tell which way is north.

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

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

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

Activities and History

What can you do with a frozen water balloon? Plenty!

What is a gear ratio? And how do gears help make the bicycle so efficient?

Come along as we explore the cool, dark world of cheese.

Activities and workshops for playful invention, investigation, and collaboration

Pick one and guess the source

A model for heart development

Discover the uncommon stories behind the most common fruits and vegetables.

Do a card trick that's guaranteed to make you look like a mind reader.

Have you ever wondered what makes blue cheese blue, or why some cheeses are hard and others soft?

Play a memory concentration game: Listen closely then match pairs of sounds.

Artist Bob Miller's Light Walk at the Exploratorium will change the way you look at light, shadow, and images.

An ordinary metal spoon can make some astounding sounds!

Seasoned gardeners depend on a community of bacteria, worms, and insects to get the most out of their plantings. Find out why.

Design and build a musical instrument that responds to changing light.

Have you ever wondered what makes blue cheese blue, or why some cheeses are hard and others soft?

The nearly ice-free Dry Valleys are an Antarctic anomaly, and Earth's closest equivalent to Mars.