The Exploratorium and the Persistence of Innocent Science

San Francisco’s Exploratorium, founded in 1968, embodied a utopian vision of scientific thought. Its founder, Frank Oppenheimer, was a Peter Pan figure who helped publicize the museum’s image as a place where children and adults could escape the worries of modern life and return to the joys of pure perception. This chapter argues that the Exploratorium self-consciously stood as an alternative to a career-minded, nationalistic model of science education.