THE EXPLORATORIUM
A MUSEUM OF SCIENCE, ART AND HUMAN PERCEPTION

History
Housed within the walls of the Palace of Fine Arts, the Exploratorium is a collage of over 400 interactive exhibits in the areas of science, art, and human perception. Over 700 have been created. The Exploratorium stands in the vanguard of the movement of the “museum as educational center.” It provides access to, and information about, science, nature, art and technology.

Since the Exploratorium’s inception, the museum’s exhibits and programs have focused on human perception: how do we see, hear, smell, feel and otherwise experience the world around us? We now have begun to inquire beyond simple perception to include all of cognition, in other words, using the mind to understand the very workings of the mind itself. In the area of Life Sciences, we explore the characteristics that define all living things.

Noted physicist and educator Dr. Frank Oppenheimer, who devoted his efforts as Director until his death in 1985, founded this unique museum in 1969. Dr. Goéry Delacôte, a renowned French scientist, educator and public servant, was Executive Director of the Exploratorium from 1991 to 2005. In 2006, Dr. Dennis Bartels, a nationally known science education and policy expert, became the Exploratorium’s Executive Director.

Informal Science Education through Public Exhibition
The Exploratorium’s educational approach provides maximum exposure to the phenomena of science. Amidst the excitement of blinking and beckoning exhibits is a carefully devised science curriculum, appropriate for the informal and formal teaching of science. It stresses the presentation of authentic experiences, in an unpretentious manner, in a public learning environment.

Three-dimensional exhibits, built on site, offer the kind of experimental learning that is difficult, if not virtually impossible, to obtain through any other medium, whether it be the classroom, books, television or the Internet. Yet, media and technology innovations are used in exhibitry and public programs, as well as to extend the Exploratorium beyond its walls.

The Exploratorium, known for its unconventional approach to “culture” in a scientific and technological age, explores the impact of culture and context on human perception and cognition through its collection and special exhibitions. The exhibits currently fall within broad subject areas: Seeing, Traits of Life, Matter/World, Mind, and Listening. In addition to this core collection, there are experimental spaces for new and developing exhibits, as well as for temporary exhibitions, some of which the museum develops and some of which it hosts from other organizations. A recent temporary exhibition created by the Exploratorium, Revealing Bodies, examined the ways we inspect, diagnose and depict bodies, and the cultural and social implications of these efforts. The New York Times described the show as the “multicultural, cross-disciplinary blend of art, science and participatory technologies very much in the institution’s mold-breaking tradition.”

In addition, the Exploratorium invites visual and performance artists to create works while in residence at the Exploratorium. The Osher Fellowship Program brings scholars, artists and scientists in all fields. Public Programs supports such ongoing activities as a curated film series related to exhibitions; innovative special events; demonstrations where artisans conduct informal, hands-on workshops with the public; and webcasts from scientific research sites around the world.

While the Exploratorium’s leisure-time visitors usually attend individually and in family or social groups, the interactive exhibits are also core curriculum materials for the work of the Exploratorium’s learning and teaching efforts, which focuses on supporting educators and science education in schools. Finally, the exhibits developed here are replicated and rented or sold to museums around the world through our museum partnerships.

Formal Science Education through Learning and Teaching
More than 500 elementary, middle and high school science and mathematics teachers from the Bay Area and the nation annually attend Exploratorium institutes that use our exhibits as the basis for inquiry-based training of educators. In a unique collaboration of informal and formal educational institutions, the Exploratorium’s Teacher Institute has partnered with school districts, universities, business and government to improve science instruction and decrease the number of teachers leaving the profession. The Teacher Institute’s Novice Teacher Program, for example, offers professional development and support to beginning teachers in middle and high schools. The Exploratorium staff have testified before education committees of both houses of Congress about its national model.

The Exploratorium’s Institute for Inquiry © is a national center that supports educators from districts, museums and universities who are dedicated to developing innovation and leadership in elementary science education. The Institute provides a variety of workshops, forums and an on-line professional development curricula designed to increase an
understanding of the true nature of the scientific process, and how that process leads to developing an understanding of important science content in a deep and personal way. Recently, the Institute has expanded its work to include new audiences in Latin America, out-of-school leaders, education and science faculty at universities and post-docs and grad students engaged in educational outreach. The Institute is also engaged in several new projects which explore the integration of inquiry with English Language Learning, use of school gardens as a laboratory for science investigations and the collaboration with other science institutions and Bay Area Elementary School Districts to develop approaches to advance science education.

Another program is CILS. Taking a cue from the public’s enthusiastic response to “informal science centers” like science and natural history museums, zoos, and aquaria, the Center for Informal Learning and Schools (CILS) integrates the best of the “informal science learning” with the formal learning that takes place in schools. A collaboration between the Exploratorium, King’s College London (KCL), and the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), CILS trains in informal science instruction and examines the strategies that make such centers powerful learning venues. CILS prepares leaders in informal science education, conducts research, supports students pursuing advanced degrees in science education, and provides professional development opportunities for science museum staff. The Center is headquartered at the Exploratorium, and began operation in fall 2002.

Each year, 100,000 school children visit the museum with their teachers through the Field Trips Program. The Explainer Program, also a model for museums around the world, trains 100 high school students a year in the science behind the exhibits, giving them the knowledge to act as explainers for museum visitors, proving the age-old adage that “the best way to learn is by teaching.” The Children’s Educational Outreach Program provides educational services to 7000 young people in underserved areas.

Science Teaching through Media and Communication
The Exploratorium uses interactive and traditional media to extend the Exploratorium’s learning approach to audiences — teachers, students, the general public — within and outside the museum.

An example is the Exploratorium’s 4-time Webby-award-winning Web site, a true extension of the museum. A resource without walls, free to everyone, it offers educational content and experiences to people around the globe. Featured are hundreds of hands-on activities, which give all Exploratorium audiences the ability to explore and interact, and in-depth pages that explore such topics as cooking and food or biodiversity. Noteworthy are the experimental Webcasts in which we send our own crews around the globe to feature live science events from around the world, providing museum and Internet visitors with science as it happens.

Two such characteristic events were the total solar eclipses from both Turkey and Zambia, which were streamed live to museum and Internet audiences; at the same time, scientists from countries on the path of totality talked to Exploratorium scientists and visitors on our Web site. In the summer of 2008, the Exploratorium presented another total solar eclipse from China. The Exploratorium’s Web site (www.exploratorium.edu) receives over 28 million distinct visitors a year.

Another focus is trade and educational publishing for children, adults and families. Over 50,000 copies of Exploratorium educational publications are sold annually, with more than 28 titles in print.

Partner Museums: Where in the World Are Our Exhibits?
A partnership composed of the Exploratorium and others from Paris, France to Fort Worth makes it possible to lease the Exploratorium’s most popular exhibits for three years at a reasonable cost. Each partner receives 30–35 thematically based exhibits annually, plus educational expertise and support from the Exploratorium. The network forges alliances among partners, and creates new funding, research and collaborative opportunities for them. In addition, several Exploratorium-designed exhibitions are traveling, rented by other institutions. Among them are Memory, which explores how humans process, store, retrieve, and forget memories; Navigation, which explores the diversity and ingenuity of human navigation and has gone to 20 venues since 1993; Turbulent Landscapes, which blends art and science to illuminate the underlying order in the chaotic patterns of nature, and Traces of Time, which tells the story of time through a selection of 30 captivating images. A traveling version of Traits of Life began circulating in early 2004.

International Impact and Influence
The Exploratorium is one of San Francisco’s most prominent museums, drawing visitors from across the country and around the globe. In any given year, representatives from some 35 museums in 18 different countries personally visit the Exploratorium for the express purpose of planning a new science museum or enhancing an old one. At least 90 percent of the nation’s science museums, and 70 percent of the museums worldwide, have borrowed ideas from Exploratorium exhibits or programs.

The Exploratorium’s annual attendance is over half a million. The museum’s impact is extended to approximately 20 million people per year through the dissemination of its exhibits and programs to other museums.

The Exploratorium’s contribution is especially significant in light of the growing importance of science museums and science centers in general. They are more popular than all other museums combined and, in many metropolitan areas, more popular than any other form of public “infotainment.”

11/08