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

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

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

The Instruments Aboard the Mars Exploration Rover

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.

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

Explore the process of extracting DNA from Neanderthal bones.

Discover the difference between taste and smell.

In celebration of Albert Einstein's work in 1905, science laboratories and museum around the world (including the Exploratorium) participated in a twelve-hour webcast that explored Einstein's influence on current physics research.

Close your eyes – and open your ears.

By looking at satellite and climate data that's available on the Web, surfers can follow storms into shore and be there in time to catch the biggest waves.

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

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

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.

Find out why biodiversity benefits plants and people alike.

Explore the process of reconstructing a skull as a 3-D model.

In celebration of Albert Einstein's work in 1905, science laboratories and museum around the world (including the Exploratorium) participated in a twelve-hour webcast that explored Einstein's influence on current physics research.

See a map of recent earthquakes in the United States, and learn why earthquakes happen so frequently on the West Coast.

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

A little physics can go a long way on that shortboard.

See for yourself how the tilt of the earth's axis results in what we experience as the seasons.

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

Get up close and personal with a sucrose molecule.

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

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

Make a tool that lets you measure how tall a building is or how high a rocket flies.

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.

La famosa modelo de Leonardo es usada en un interesante experimento de percepci�_n.

Do hot water and cold water mix?

See links relevant to the themes presented in the Traits of Life exhibition.

Explore light, shadow, and motion using a variety of simple materials and light sources.

Meteor, meteorite, meteoroid – what's the difference?

About Anaglyphs. How do I make 3-D glasses?

A brief history of Chichen Itza.

When you pick up a baseball, it immediately suggests its purpose: to be thrown fast and with considerable accuracy.

A little physics can go a long way on that shortboard.

How do scientists establish the age of artifacts, rocks, and settlements?

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.

Come with us to Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico, which is rich with thousand-year-old artifacts of the ancient Pueblo culture and contains sites that appear to have been astronomical observatories.

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

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

Watch ancient text revealed and read for the first time in a thousand years!

The three most densely populated cities on the planet where seismologists expect major earthquakes are San Francisco, Tokyo, and Istanbul. Find out why the effects in each city will be very different.

Explore the unknown world inside your brain with these fun activities.

Most people abhor the sound of their own recorded voice. So what are these recording devices doing to our voices to make them sound so awful?

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

A model for heart development

Activities and History

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

Share some secret sounds with a friend.

Why do road bikes have thin tires, while mountain bikes have fat tires?