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

Are there meat by-products in makeup? Can you guess where you might find them?

Experience the thrill of pickle making, and explore how a cucumber becomes a pickle.

Try your hand at explaining symbols both modern and ancient, and then make your own.

Enjoy the early memories of some of the visitors to this website.

Learn about bike gears using thread spools and a rubber band.

Learn how to bridge the digital generation gap

APE was a four-year Exploratorium project to explore strategies and tactics to shift the role of visitors from passive recipient of information to active participant in the exhibit experience.

A do-it-yourself cartoon kit. It's easy to make pictures move!

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

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

What happens to sandy or fine-grained soils when an earthquake shakes them up? Try this simple activity to find out.

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.

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.

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

Visit the Outdoor Exploratorium at Fort Mason to explore the science behind wind, waves, and more.

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

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

Grow spikes of crystals in the sun.

Is it just a glorified plank with roller skate wheels on it? Or is it a highly engineered device through which kids have reclaimed the urban landscape, bringing creativity and style back to the sterile asphalt spaces of sprawl?

Watch tiny blue, green, and white molds grow on leftover food.

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

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

What do you really know about what you see?

Join the Exploratorium on the playa in Black Rock Desert and explore the science of pyrotechnics, flight, dust devils, rainbows, and more.

Learn how living things get energy from dead ones in this interactive exhibit.

Meet the competitors and their humongous pumpkins at Half Moon Bay's Great Pumpkin Festival.

Modelos plásticos huecos del aparato vocal humano convierten el graznido de un pato en sonidos de vocales.

Sometimes things are not as they appear.

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

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

From May 20 to June 5 1997, we presented a webcast series exploring the art and science of severe storm visualization.

Grow marshmallows to monstrous proportions!

What's the difference between white meat and dark meat? Which animals have which and why?

Search a geological map of Ethiopia for fossils.

Explore an interactive map.

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.

Build a tool that lets you do estimates using your own feet.