Exploratorium Website is the Place to Go to Know It All Before the All-Star Game
www.exploratorium.edu/baseball

This season, with the All-Star game at AT&T Park in San Francisco on July 10 and the FanFest July 7-10, everybody is talking baseball. Swing into the Exploratorium’s website, the place to go to know it all before the game. The Exploratorium has been called “the best science museum in the world” by Scientific American.

First, slide into the Exploratorium’s home page in your own living room and discover the deep background behind the buzz. Ever wonder why curveballs curve? Or what powers an awesome home run swing? Log onto the Exploratorium’s award-winning Science of Baseball website at www.exploratorium.edu/baseball and find out. Here’s some of what you’ll find:
Science of Baseball brings the action of the game into your home with interactive games. Test your reaction time — do you have what it takes to hit a 90 mph fastball? Use the interactive calculator to discover how far a Mark McGwire home run would go under different weather conditions. Hands-on activities using ordinary baseball equipment and some common household items will help you find the sweet spot on your bat or learn to throw amazing curve balls.

How are bats, balls, and gloves made? Take an online video tour of the Louisville Slugger factory. How would famous players have performed back in the Babe Ruth era? The Baseball Time Machine, primed with stats from Total Baseball, the Official Encyclopedia of Major League Baseball, will show you how certain players’ stats stack up in different eras. You’ll even see what some current players’ 1920s-era baseball cards would have looked like.

The site also includes features on women in baseball, the Negro leagues, the Japanese leagues — and much more! It doesn’t matter if you strike out or pop up. Log on to the Science of Baseball site this July, for a great time at the digital ballpark.

Also, take in the Baseball Edition of Iron Science Teacher, on Friday, July 6 at noon. Cheer on the competitors in this zany, science cook-off, where teachers compete before a live audience. In a fast-paced atmosphere where showmanship and creativity reign, science teachers are given ten minutes and a secret Baseball ingredient to concoct a science activity that can be used in the classroom. Don’t live in San Francisco? Log on to www.exploratorium.edu/iron_science

About the Exploratorium
The Exploratorium in San Francisco was founded in 1969, and has achieved worldwide recognition as the prototype for hands-on science museums around the world. The Exploratorium’s educational approach provides maximum exposure to the phenomena of science amidst the excitement of hundreds of blinking and beckoning exhibits. Known for presenting authentic science experiences — interspersed with art — in an unpretentious manner, it is also at the forefront of teacher education, education reform and the intersection of learning and technology. More than 27 million visit its five-time Webby-award-winning Web site (www.exploratorium.edu). Thousands of teachers participate in a range of Exploratorium professional development and teacher-resource programs each year, including intensive month long summer workshops. The Exploratorium has had a profound impact on the museum field and on the field of informal science education, influencing the creation of more than 60 science centers nationally and internationally. They in turn reach an additional estimated 60 million people per year