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All Ages
Celebrate Ocean Discovery Month this summer at the Exploratorium, and explore your connection to the ocean through daily hands-on activities, films, ship tours, conversations, interactive exhibits, and more.
Visitors of all ages can make ocean discoveries all month from inside and outside our waterfront museum location.
Ocean Discovery Month features our partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which will be docking a research vessel at the Exploratorium’s Pier 17 in August, as well as scientists from UC Davis and UC Santa Cruz who monitor conditions from our location and study the connection between the ocean and Bay through the Exploratorium’s Wired Pier environmental observing program.
August 8–13: Scientific Buoy Display
August 9–12: NOAA Research Vessel Reuben Lasker Docked on Pier 15/17
August 17–September 5: Saildrone 23-Foot Oceanic Research Drone Display
There's always something interesting happening here—check out our ongoing events.
Friday, August 31, 2018 • 5:30 p.m.
Join a live chat with explorers on board the E/V Nautilus as they use an ROV to explore an erupting undersea volcano near Hawaii.
Thursday, August 30, 2018 • 2:00 p.m.
Join a live chat with explorers on board the E/V Nautilus as they use an ROV to explore an erupting undersea volcano near Hawaii.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018 • 10:00–2:00 p.m.
Take a close look at the critters and seaweed that colonize the bottom of the buoy when we pull our NOAA CO2 buoy out of the water for its yearly servicing.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018, 9:30 a.m.–10:00 a.m.
Discover what's inside—and what creatures live on—a scientific buoy as we raise the one that bobs in the Bay between Piers 15 and 17. Light refreshments will be served.
Thursday, August 2, 2018 • 6:00–10:00 p.m.
Trampolines, pogo sticks, kids on road trips: bouncing isn’t just about jumping up and down but describes an object’s change in motion after encountering an obstacle. Rebound your curiosity in collisions at After Dark: Bounce.
Thursday, August 2, 2018 • Noon–1:00 p.m.
Join Elizabeth Rush, author of Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, for a discussion about coastal communities undergoing dramatic transformation due to climate change.
Wednesday, August 1, 2018 • 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Join Exploratorium biologist Jennifer Frazier for a tour of Exploratorium ocean exhibits that explore what plankton are, where they live, and how they change with the environment.
Daily, August 1–31, 2018 • 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Discover the Bay’s plankton through a powerful microscope at the Bakar Explainer Station twice a day during Ocean Discovery Month.
Wednesday, August 1–Monday, September 9, 2018
Celebrate Ocean Discovery Month this August at the Exploratorium, and explore your connection to the ocean through hands-on activities, ship tours, conversations, interactive exhibits, and more.