Enjoy a fun, family-friendly day full of fascinating hands-on discovery at the all-new Exploratorium in San Francisco, now conveniently located on Pier 15 along the Embarcadero between the Ferry Building and Fisherman’s Wharf at Pier 39. Your all-day admission ticket grants you full access to this museum’s amazing exhibits.
Take your time enjoying more than 600 multi-sensory exhibits occupying five different galleries: South, East, West, Central and Outdoor. A large number of these are brand-new exhibits designed specifically for the museum’s new Pier 15 location, so even if you’ve been to the Exploratorium before, there’s lots more to see!
From the physics of sound and movement to human, plant and insect anatomy to optical illusions to global ecosystems, the Exploratorium brings you into a whole new world of discovery, offering intriguing insights for everyone’s interests, whether you’re a kid or an adult!
Exploratorium Galleries
Central Gallery: Seeing and Listening
Experiment with light and vision, sound and hearing, and motion and spatial perception. Our eyes and ears respond to light and sound waves, but these are just the first steps in perceiving the world. Playing with light and sound is the best way to learn how they work, and investigating real phenomena can also give you a deeper understanding of the scientific process.
West Gallery: Human Phenomena
Experiment with thoughts, feelings and social behavior to see how humans think, feel and interact. Here, you and others are the exhibit, so play with social interactions, observe others and contribute your reflections.
South Gallery: Tinkering
Think with your hands! Making things and developing ideas by hand helps us construct understanding. So slow down, settle in and make something personally meaningful, from playful contraptions to surprising connections between mechanical systems and natural phenomena.
East Gallery: Living Systems
Sometimes life is hard to observe, because it’s too tiny or fast or is hidden underground or in the ocean. Here, investigate the living world to discover what you’ve been missing! Use scientific tools to investigate living things of different sizes, the ecosystems they inhabit and the processes they share.
Outdoor Gallery
Open your senses to this place by the Bay! Investigate forces shaping the city of San Francisco, San Francisco Bay and the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Watch shifting winds and tides, reveal hidden life, shake a bridge, observe human behavior, and find new ways to notice the places we inhabit.
Bay Observatory Gallery: Landscape Observation
See how natural and human forces interact to create the dynamic landscape surrounding us. Learn to uncover the stories embedded in a place by directly observing the geography, history and ecology of the San Francisco Bay region. The Observatory Gallery also offers incredible views of the Bay and the Bay Bridge!
April 2014
