A colorful and deep immersion into the world of plants.
Traveling, having rich experiences with our kids, and finding unique places for incredible family learning is something that we’d always loved to do -and what we aim to inspire other families to do as well! That’s why when The Exploratorium in San Francisco invited us to see their brand new exhibition Plantásticas, not only were we super excited, we also knew we would want to share all about it!
Visiting the Exploratorium with kids is one of the coolest things we’ve done as a family while in San Francisco, and if you’re into vibrant colors, abundant life and plenty of hands on learning, you’re gonna love this new exhibition.
This is a sponsored post, commissioned by The Exploratorium. All opinions and suggestions expressed in this post are based on my personal view.
Let’s talk about The Exploratorium
After having visited plenty of museums, here in California and around the world, one of the best ways to describe this one of a kind museum is, as an interactive museum for kids of all ages (although as an adult you’ll find yourself interacting pretty much with everything too 😊)
The Exploratorium is located at Pier 15, at The Embarcadero in San Francisco, and it sure will attract your attention as soon as you arrive. Is it its magnetic logo sign? The skateboarders doing tricks outside? The incredible views of the bay? Or perhaps it is its futuristic Buckyball in the plaza.
Once inside, you’ll immediately feel drawn to the hundreds of installations spread out through 6 exhibit sites. Now and until September 10th, you’ll find Plantásticas at the Living Systems Exhibit at Moore Gallery (Site # 4).
Plantásticas: Our lives with Plants
This multilingual and multicultural exhibit is The Exploratorium’s most recent immersive experiences. Plantásticas was inspired by the world of plants and how they affect our every day lives. It is deeply rooted in Latinx culture with names like Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino, Andi Xoch and Doña Maria Ávila Vera as key collaborators for some of the installations.
It is an exhibition that will activate all of your senses! From its vibrant colors, to the diverse textures and the intense scents of flowers, wood, leaves and seeds. It will also awaken your memory in ways that you may not expect, and it’ll absolutely spark curiosity and wonder for the entire family.
Things you can’t miss at Plantásticas
Although we loved every bit of this exhibition, there were some installations that we couldn’t stop thinking about, even after our visit! What made these stand out, specially as a mom who loves to travel with her kids, is that they really captured our attention and almost made us lose track of time.
Here are the details:
- The ground plants installation. This was my personal favorite because it was like taking a little journey completely driven by the sense of smell. There were a total of 7 “kaphan koros” which were similar to stone bowls, each with different ground plants inside. I loved closing my eyes and smelling the various scents of berries, rose petals, fatwood, and a couple of ground leaves like mint, and bay laurel.
- The corn installation. This installation was super cool and very informative. We learned that there are more than 15 types of corn! And that they are all used for different things. Yep! Not only can you eat corn on the cob and make popcorn with it (with totally different corn BTW), but you can also use it to feed livestock, and grind it to make dishes like Tamales and Tortillas.
- The mini ecosystem installation: It was like watching a fascinating tiny world. There were different types of plants co-living together and the tiniest shrimp we’d ever seen. There was also a rope suspension bridge made at scale, as a model for bridges the Inka people used to build in Peru.
- The flower drawing installation: This was probably the one my daughter Nala loved the most since she kept coming back to it. It was very interesting because it showed us flower symmetry through different examples and allowed us to draw our own flowers, just by doing one side, using radial symmetry.
Useful info about visiting Plantásticas
The Exploratorium is open every day except Mondays. You can plan your visit Tuesday – Saturday at any time from 10am to 5pm, and Sundays from 12pm to 5pm. If you’re looking to see Plantásticas only, you’ll need approximately 2 hours to enjoy the full exhibition. If you’d like to see everything else in the museum as well, definitely plan to stay at least 5 hours. Your kids will love it and you’ll love it too.
The Exploratorium offers a discount for parking at The Exploratorium Pier 15 Parking Lot and Pier 19 1/2 Parking Lot. Both of them are very close to the Museum Entrance.
You can buy tickets in advance directly at www.exploratorium.edu (ticket page linked here for you) 😊
And there you have it! You now have everything you need to plan your next Exploratorium adventure with kids.
Wanna learn more about family travel and seeing the world with kids? Get started right here!
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