Exploratorium

The Exploratorium began in 1969 as the vision of a physicist named Frank Oppenheimer. He was the younger brother of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man who led the development of the atomic bomb. After his own career in physics was interrupted by the political blacklisting of the nineteen-fifties, Frank moved to rural Colorado to become a cattle rancher and a high school science teacher. It was in his small high school classroom that he pioneered a new method of teaching, using scrap parts and hands-on experiments to help students discover scientific principles for themselves rather than relying on dry textbooks. He eventually brought this philosophy of active, curiosity-driven learning to San Francisco, opening his museum in the vast, vacant space of the Palace of Fine Arts.