ABSTRACT
It was the brainchild of Frank Oppenheimer, a physicist with a history of finding active ways to teach. Oppenheimer set out to challenge traditional ways of teaching science by replacing the top-down, passive teaching and learning of universities and television, where the authors learn about things of which they have no direct experience, with a practical learning resource designed to be used in multiple ways by different people. A museum of science, art and human perception, Oppenheimer shaped the Exploratorium in order to enable visitors to understand more about themselves, the world and science through direct practical engagement with natural and scientific phenomena and playful experimentation. Most exciting in its early months and years and prior to the formulaic exhibit cookbooks and more prescriptive and controlling approaches to learning and design that would emerge in the 1990s, the young Exploratorium provides an example of a moment of intuitive, generous and active museum making.
