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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.

Cell Explorer
Cell Explorer

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

Pi Day
Pi Day

Activities and History

Tidal Bulge

Make a paper model that helps explain the changing tides.

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.

Collisions on Ice
Collisions on Ice

What happens when two hockey players collide? Try our hockey collision calculator!

Drives & Gears
Drives & Gears

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

TV Dots
TV Dots

See how TV screens create images from many tiny colored dots of light.

The Making of a Bell

Follow the process of designing and casting our new bell.

Sunspots
Sunspots

Map sunspots and build an apparatus for safe sunspot viewing!

Middle Ground
Middle Ground

Explore new social science exhibits at San Francisco’s Civic Center.

Copper Caper
Copper Caper

Watch old pennies turn bright and shiny right before your eyes!

Guillermo Galindo: Performance

Walk the border with Guillermo Galindo's boundary-breaking artistic work.

Kosher Dill Current
Kosher Dill Current

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

Okkyung Lee Interview

Listen in on the mind behind cellist Okkyung Lee's kinetic style.

Whirling Watcher
Whirling Watcher

Make a spinning disc called a stroboscope, which lets you create your own animated cartoon.

Ancient Observatories
Ancient Observatories

Journey into Chaco Canyon, where ancient people built monuments to the cosmos. Journey to Chichén Itzá, where the Maya built monuments to the sun.

Ocean Acidification in a Cup: Going further

Can you reverse ocean acidification in a cup?

Tic-Tac-Toe
Tic-Tac-Toe

Playing games is a great way to exercise your brain. Even a simple game like Tic-Tac-Toe can teach you about strategy.

Messing With Your Mind
Messing With Your Mind

Can you trust your own memory? Find out with this activity.

Picturing the Body
Picturing the Body

Learn about common techniques for peering inside the body in order to diagnose disease and injury.

Listening Memory Game
Listening Memory Game

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

Chaco Canyon

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.

Which Embryo is Human?
Which Embryo Is Human?

Can you tell the difference between human and nonhuman embryos?

Collecting soil for Winogradsky Column activity
Bacterial Terrarium

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

Your Stuff, Your Stories
Your Stuff, Your Stories

Can a gum wrapper have a story? Discover just how important and meaningful an object can be.

Journey to Mars
Journey to Mars

Learn about the rovers that have been exploring Mars since 2004, and view the amazing images they've taken.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet and Bernie Krause: Performance

Get mesmerized by choreographer Alonzo King and soundscape artist Bernie Krause.

Your Body in Your Mind's Eye
Your Body in Your Mind's Eye

Can you take a sip of water from a cup with your eyes closed?

Blindfolded Walk
Blindfolded Walk

Close your eyes – and open your ears.

Molecular Meat
Molecular Meat

What happens to meat when you cook it?

ColorFest
ColorFest

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

Peter Taylor's Tool Belt

by Steve Gennrich • January 7, 2017

Peter Taylor, Exploratorium Super-Technician, talks about his outdoor installation tools.

Film Canister Farming
Film Canister Farming

Experiment with water, temperature, and light to see what makes a seed come out of its shell.

Balloon Blow-Up
Balloon Blow-Up

Not all bubbles are made with soap!

Active Zone: Graphics
Active Zone: Graphics

A downloadable series of graphics from our Faultline website gives a snapshot of seismic science.

The Science of Wine
The Science of Wine

An evening of wine, food, and talk.

Extended Cinemas 2018

Contemplate the continuum of cinema at After Dark. 

Divided Attention exhibit on Exploratorium Island in Second Life
Divided Attention Exhibit on Exploratorium Island: Porting a Museum Exhibit to 2D and 3D Web

by Rob Rothfarb • May 3, 2010

The Science of Surfing
The Science of Surfing

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

Find the Fat
Find the Fat

Just how much fat is in ground beef? You may be surprised.

Naked Eggs
Naked Eggs

Use your naked egg to experiment with osmosis, the movement of water across a membrane.

Ancient Observatories Teacher's Guide
Ancient Observatories Teacher's Guide
The Domino Effect
The Domino Effect (pdf)

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

Sound Automata (pdf)

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.

Building for the Big One
Building for the Big One

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.

Since 1906
Since 1906

The 1906 earthquake jolted geologists into focusing on how and why faults break loose.

Pringles Pinhole
Pringles Pinhole

Recycle a potato chip can into a simple camera.

The Body Farm
The Body Farm

Human corpses decay alfresco, all in the name of forensic science.

Why are bubbles round?
Why are bubbles round?

Bubbles are round when they float free through air. But what happens when you pack bubbles together?

Geometry Scavenger Hunt
Geometry Scavenger Hunt

What geometric shapes can you find on the playground?

Finger Test for Doneness
Finger Test for Doneness

Your thumb and index finger can help you test a steak's degree of doneness.

Cantilevers

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

Visitor at After Dark : Get Surreal sampling an augmented reality Meta Cookie
Meta Cookie: Olfactory and Gustatory Augmented Reality

by Rob Rothfarb • February 11, 2011

Visitors experienced the sights and smells of "Meta Cookie', an augmented reality installation at After Dark: Get Surreal.

Chaco Canyon

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.

The Science of Sharing Forum with Hugh E. McDonald and Jennifer Jacquet
Discover the Science of Sharing.
Meet Your Microbiome

Our bodies contain 30 trillion microbes, a microbiome that seems essential for our well-being.

How Old Is It?
How Old Is It?

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

Chaco Canyon

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.

Seeing
Seeing

What do you really know about what you see?

Frontside Forces and Fakie Flight
Frontside Forces and Fakie Flight

The Physics of Skateboarding Tricks

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