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Exploratorium
Exploratorium
  • Visit
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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.

Brain Explorer
Brain Explorer

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

Total Solar Eclipse from China: August 1, 2008
Total Solar Eclipse from China: August 1, 2008
Feeling Pressured

Feel the weight of the atmosphere—plus a little extra.

Arctic Seals
Arctic Seals

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

What's New In the World
What's New In the World

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

Camera Obscura

Step inside San Francisco's landmark camera obscura with operator Robert Tacchetto.

Curiosity's Secret Discovery

The Curiosity rover made a discovery—now what?

Cafe Wall Illusion
Cafe Wall Illusion

Interact with the Cafe Wall Illusion.

Evidence: How Do We Know What We Know?
Evidence: How Do We Know What We Know?

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

Bernie Lubell
Bernie Lubell

Meet a kinetic sculptor.

Seeing
Seeing

What do you really know about what you see?

Open Make: Meet the Makers/Wood
Flash back to the Open Make program showcasing local makers.
Why Save Seeds?
Why Save Seeds?

Find out why biodiversity benefits plants and people alike.

UN Plaza LIZ Takes Shape

by Eileen Campbell • May 19, 2016

Sound Commons,  a new SPS installation, is taking shape in UN Plaza.

Revealing Bodies
Revealing Bodies

How has imagery changed the way we look at our bodies—over time and in different cultures?

Science of Cooking
Science of Cooking Archive

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

Plate Tectonics
Plate Tectonics

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

Monthly Wallpaper
Monthly Wallpaper

Decorate your desktop with some of the most intriguing pattern and perception images from the Exploratorium.

The Scientific Capabilities of the Mars Rover Curiosity

See what's on the Curiosity rover's tool belt.

Rock Candy Recipe
Rock Candy Recipe
Ocean Acidification in a Cup: Do the experiment

Model ocean acidification with this simple experiment.

A Dangerous Time
A Dangerous Time

Why do teens take risks, and what do our notions of risk tell us about the dangers of growing up?

Building the Exploratorium at Pier 15: Timelapse

The Exploratorium wasn't built in a day—watch it go up in a minute. 

Saving Seeds, Saving Culture
Saving Seeds, Saving Culture

Saving seeds helps preserve the culture of Native American farmers in the American Southwest and northern Mexico.

Space Weather: Research Explorer
Space Weather: Research Explorer

Use live data to check the weather in space, and learn how it can affect us here on earth.

The Tinkering Studio
The Tinkering Studio

Activities and workshops for playful invention, investigation, and collaboration

Journey to an Organic Egg Farm
Journey to an Organic Egg Farm

Visit an organic egg farm, and see the science behind raising those eggs.

Peter Whitehead
Peter Whitehead

Peter Whitehead is an instrument builder, performer, and composer.

Colored Shadows

Not all shadows are black. Discover a rainbow of shadows here.

L'illusione del muro del caffé
L'illusione del muro del caffé

Sperimenta interattivamente l'illusione del muro del caffé.

Bread Worldwide
Bread Worldwide

Tour the Breads of the World

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.

Singing in the Shower
Singing in the Shower

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.

Transit of Venus 2012: 1st and 2nd Contact

Experience the slow majesty of the transit of Venus.

Voting Paradoxes

Explore some ways in which the democratic process can go wrong.

The Domino Effect
The Domino Effect (pdf)

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

Bubbles
Bubbles

Everything you ever wanted to know about bubbles, but were afraid to ask.

Paul Clipson

Follow filmmaker Paul Clipson as he captures the Exploratorium's waterfront site.

Rock Candy Recipe
Rock Candy Recipe
Census of Marine Life
Census of Marine Life

Exploring the diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans

Airships

Fly through the air with the greatest of ease—on an airship.

Seasons and Shadows
Seasons and Shadows

Why is your shadow longer in winter than in summer? Grab a basketball and some paperclips and find out!

Wind Tubes (pdf)
Wind Tubes (pdf)

Wind tubes are a playful and inventive way to explore the effect that moving air has on objects.

Strandbeests Have Arrived

Experience Strandbeest: The Dream Machines of Theo Jansen.

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.

Illusion Songs
Illusion Songs

A collection of auditory illusions found in indigenous folk practices, popular music, and scientific research.

Jumping to Conclusions

Your brain is always looking for blank spaces and filling them in. Sometimes, your brain leaps to the wrong conclusion. Then you get a surprise!

Scratch Film (pdf)
Scratch Film (pdf)

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

Bee Hummer
Bee Hummer

Make a simple musical instrument that sounds like a swarm of buzzing bees when you spin it around.

Wind Tubes (pdf)
Wind Tubes (pdf)

Wind tubes are a playful and inventive way to explore the effect that moving air has on objects.

Reel Movies
Get a last-chance look at 35 mm film projection.
Strandbeest: Animaris Adulari

Enjoy strandbeests making their way across the beach.

Arctic Seals
Arctic Seals

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

Art as a Way of Knowing
Art as a Way of Knowing

This 2011 conference, hosted at the Exploratorium, explored the role aesthetic inquiry in public interdisciplinary environments.

NOAA PMEL carbon buoy
Science and the Federal Shutdown

by Mary Miller • January 18, 2019

Science lost in a government shutdown. 

Faultline: Seismic Science at the Epicenter
Faultline: Seismic Science at the Epicenter

Commemorate the 1906 quake! Rummage through live earthquake data, subductive science, and more. Learn about earthquakes in Faultline: Seismic Science at the Epicenter

Whip Graft
Whip Graft

This is an easy grafting project for beginners.

Bird in a Cage: More experiments to try

Explore the afterimages your eyes and your brain create. 

Blood
Blood

Learn about the body's vital defense force.

Meet the Artist: Fi Henshall

Meet Fi Henshall, an automata artist showcased at the Curious Contraptions exhibition.

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