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

An incubator for innovative public space ideas, projects and news

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

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

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

Bone conduction is another pathway to listening.

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

Touch supercooled water drops with an ice crystal and trigger them to freeze instantly.

Build a bridge from a piece of paper and explore ways of making it stronger.

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

A window on regeneration

Grow marshmallows to monstrous proportions!

Teeth are the most common fossils found. What can they tell us?

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

Where is the Center of the Universe? Here, there, and everywhere.

A brief history of Chichen Itza.

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

Design and build a musical instrument that responds to changing light.

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

Search a geological map of Ethiopia for fossils.

The brightest buds get all the glory – but they're not just for show.

Create your own fish mummy using common baking soda!

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

From 1977 until 2003, the Exploratorium published a quarterly magazine. The Exploratorium Magazine Online is a companion to selected issues of the print magazine, providing key articles and activities and including multimedia features.

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

Visit Las Cuevas Research Station in Belize and the Natural History Museum in London to learn about the study of biodiversity.

About Anaglyphs. How do I make 3-D glasses?

Four times over 100-plus years, major initiatives have brought together scientists from around the globe to collaboratively study the poles.

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

When you ride a bike in a straight line, you must make many minor corrections in order to stay upright.

Most people abhor the sound of their own recorded voice. So what are these recording devices doing to our voices to make them sound so awful?

What's in that cup of coffee anyway? Find out about the history and chemistry of coffee.

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

Get down and dirty with the surprising science of soil.

Find out why people who love birthday parties should move to Mercury.

Find out why biodiversity benefits plants and people alike.

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?

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.

Can you tell the difference between human and nonhuman embryos?

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

Join us as we crunch our way through everything from our San Francisco sourdough to Injera and Pugliese.

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

Hear vocal tract models transform the squawk of a duck call into vowel sounds.

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

Read stories and see footage from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

This clay building activity shows that when you make things bigger, weight increases faster than strength.

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

On March 29, 2006, a total solar eclipse occurred when the new moon moved directly between the sun and the earth. The moon’s shadow fell on the eastern tip of Brazil, sped eastward across the Atlantic, through northern Africa, across the Mediterranean, an