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

Why is baseball so popular in Japan?

Make a fantastic toy that shimmers when you shake it.

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?

These unique – and uniquely beautiful – seal species spend their lives amid the sea ice

Use live data to make your own wave predictions, wherever you are.

There's more to polar ice than just frozen water. Learn about the many varieties of ice found at the poles and how and where they form.

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

There are about 500 dispatches from scientists working in the Arctic and Antarctica, along with original videos, photos, webcasts, and articles.

A brief history of Chichen Itza.

What do you really know about what you see?

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

The frozen worlds of the Arctic and Antarctica

Get down and dirty with the surprising science of soil.

Crabeaters have extraordinary teeth, Weddells are downright cute, and leopards are as fierce as their namesake

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

Spin the bottle to see beautiful swirling shapes

Explore the ideas behind Science of Sharing with these Activities.

Tinker with electricity using common objects: batteries, lights, buzzers, motors, switches, etc.

Examine words from different languages and determine which two languages are the most closely related.

Everyone seems to love the sound of their own voice in the shower. That's because a simple shower stall produces some complex sound-altering effects.

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

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

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

From 1977 until 2003, the Exploratorium published a quarterly magazine. The Exploratorium Magazine Online is a companion to selected issues of the print magazine, providing key articles and activities and including multimedia features.

Our collaboration with Public Radio International's The World. With Public Radio International, we're taking technology news beyond the headlines.

Visit Las Cuevas Research Station in Belize and the Natural History Museum in London to learn about the study of biodiversity.

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

Take a virtual journey to the frog capital of the world, Rayne, Louisiana.

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

Imagine yourself in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. You've been sailing for weeks, and there's no land in sight. Do you know where you are? Do you know which way to go?

For most of us, science arrives in our lives packaged neatly as fact. But how did it get that way?

Does the sun rise in the east? Not exactly.

See how well various materials conduct electricity and use Science Journal to explore your data.

See astounding musical instruments made by Bart Hopkin

Grow spikes of crystals in the sun.

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

See if you can put these sounds back together in this sonic jigsaw puzzle.

Your guide to the Northern and Southern Lights (also in 'Observatory')

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

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

What do stem cells, fruit flies, and zebrafish look like under a microscope?

It's easy to fold a sheet of paper in half. But can you fold a sheet of paper in half ten times?

Learn how some vibrant seniors exercise their minds, and find out what you can do to help your own memory.