Quick, picture DNA. Chances are you’ll call to mind a diagram you’ve seen meant to represent this microscopic ‘blueprint of life:” twin helixes running in opposite directions and connected by horizontal bars.
But what if you’ve never seen such a diagram, and indeed never will? What if the sense upon which so much of science teaching […]

What do inline skates, CDs, Frisbees, and even the clothes you wear have in common? On a Thursday in late August, science educator Cassie Byrd (pictured) put the question to the homeschooled girls participating in the Exploratorium’s Girls’ Science Institute.
The answer, of course, is polymers. Cassie explained how she chose […]

When astronomer Isabel Hawkins was growing up in Argentina, an encyclopedia salesman showed up at the door one day with an illustrated book about the planets.
“There was this one picture of Jupiter” says Isabel, “floating in the blackness of space. It was that image, of this mysterious planet, this exotic world surrounded in blackness, that […]