Anne L. Francis

Great Art & Science Museum

Nestled next to Corona Heights Hill in San Francisco, you'll discover the Randall Museum, a small but impressive hands-on museum, where children and adults of all ages can explore and learn about nature, the environment, art, and more.

The museum hosts both temporary and permanent exhibits. In the main entryway, "Exhibit Hall," you'll discover the temporary, interactive displays. The current exhibit, "Journey Into the Hive," features a giant bee hive you can enter and experience what it's like to be a bee.

To watch some live bees in action in an actual honeycomb, enter the permanent "Live Animal Exhibit," a mini-zoo with over 100 animals. In addition to watching the bees, you can pet rabbits, chickens and ducks, and observe hawks, turtles, snakes, to name a few, and some bugs, too. You might also catch the staff feeding a hawk in the museum's theater, or giving the ducks a bath in a toddler pool on the back deck.

Another permanent exhibit, "Living With a Restless Earth," includes a place you can jump on the floor and make your own quake which registers on the museum's seismometer. Plus, kids love the three "shake tables" where you can build a town of Legos(tm) and test its ability to survive earthquakes of varying strengths.

In addition to the exhibit halls, the Randall also houses classrooms, a woodshop, a theater, art studios, and their newest room, the "Tree House Toddler Exploration Zone." This infant/toddler playroom is a popular hang-out for the under three crowd, sporting lots of books and toys and yes, a kid-friendly, carpeted tree house.

The Randall offers classes for all ages (children and adult) including ceramics, clay, music, woodworking, and jewelry making. See their Web site for more info.

On weekends, be sure to check out the Train Society's massive, model train exhibit in the basement, or take in a Buddy Club kid's show in the theater. On sunny days, you can also picnic on the well-kept lawn or the back deck and enjoy views of the city and bay. There's lots of room to relax and let your kids run around. The entire place is wheelchair accessible, too.

The Randall is open 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Tuesday to Saturday. Admission to the museum is free. Parking is free, too, in the museum's lot. If the lot is full, street parking is usually easy and plentiful on Museum Way or on nearby Roosevelt Street.

Free admission, free parking, fabulous views, indoor/outdoor fun for all ages, this is one San Francisco gem you'll want to check out for yourself.

Randall Museum
199 Museum Way
San Francisco, CA 94114
415-554-9600
http://www.randallmuseum.org/

Stars: 5 out of 5