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

San Francisco was born in gold dust, and nearly died in rubble and ashes.

Grow spikes of crystals in the sun.

The more astronomy changes, the more it stays the same. This series of images juxtaposes ancient and modern study of the celestial bodies.

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

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

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

Far north in the night sky, a faint glow appears on the horizon. Green and red flames of light stretch across the sky.

Learn valuable graphing skills and learn about ozone chemistry.

anatomy of a skateboard, skateboard tricks, types of skateboarding, physics glossary.

In Observance of the 50th Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"Mac Town," the first stop for many scientists in Antarctica, is the same as any town–only different.

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

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.

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

Here's how you can model the use of X rays for medical examinations with some sand and a piece of screen.

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

In the 1870s, an American woman could not vote. She could not own property in her own name after marriage. But she could play ball. . .

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

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

Nobel Laureate Symposium

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

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

Decorate your white walls with rainbow colors!

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

Do hot water and cold water mix?

In September 2004, the Exploratorium covered a conference in the Galapagos Islands, organized by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, that considered the implications of El Niño forecasting.

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

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

Ever notice how noisy people are?

What geometric shapes can you find on the playground?

A multifaceted exhibition that explored genetics and the Human Genome Project from a variety of perspectives from April 8 to September 4, 1995.

We can't predict when an earthquake will occur, but we can avoid some potential disasters.

Put on a mask and see how we communicate with our bodies as well as with our faces and words.

Explore the process of extracting DNA from Neanderthal bones.

How do you stop and steer a bicycle? What forces keep the bicycle from falling over?

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.

Activities and workshops for playful invention, investigation, and collaboration

One man's journey into blindness

Meet the robotic explorers that landed on Mars in 2004, and check out their tools and instruments.

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

The only continent without any countries or government . . .