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

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

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

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?

Explore the surprising side of color.

Four downloadable workshop guides for teaching introductory genetics in a museum or other informal education setting.

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

Map sunspots and build an apparatus for safe sunspot viewing!

Explore the mysterious interactions between light and geography through the eyes and works of artists Charles Ross and James Turrell.

With a lens, you can bend light to make pictures of the world.

Learn about the body's vital defense force.

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

Download a PDF file with step-by-step instructions for doing your own cow's eye dissection.

Using baking soda and vinegar, you can pop a plastic bag with the power of fizz.

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

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.

Explore the ancient knowledge of the Maya, who built sophisticated monuments to the sun.

Recycle a potato chip can into a simple camera.

This ancient temple holds a secret...can you reveal the mystery?

How can a microscopic organism lift several pounds of dough? Find out with this activity.

Find out how this extreme sport is governed by the principles of momentum, gravity, friction, and centripetal force. Learn skateboarding history, technology, and more!

What happens to meat when you cook it?

A Scribbling Machine is a motorized contraption that moves in unusual ways and leaves a mark to trace it's path.

Want to see where the biggest quakes have been this week? Follow a few of the links below to see what's shaking in your neighborhood and around the world.

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

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

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

Follow our crew as they visit the Dry Valleys and hike the slopes of volcanic Mt. Erebus.

Grow spikes of crystals in the sun.

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.

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

Observe the effects of special relativity as you travel near the speed of light.

Learn how to tie the six knots most useful on a voyaging canoe.

Watch this timelapse video to see a zebrafish develop from a single cell into an embryo

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

Skilled listeners share their secrets.

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

With a lens, you can bend light to make pictures of the world.

A model for heart development

A fish-eye view of the brain

Complete an electrical circuit with your body and explore ways to control the flow of electricity.

Search a geological map of Ethiopia for fossils.

fat, proteins, collagen, and more