About

The High School Explainer Program at San Francisco's Exploratorium is one of the oldest and most distinctive youth workforce programs in the country, with roots stretching back to 1969 when the museum first opened. Each summer, the Exploratorium hires a cohort of high school students — ages 15 to 18 for first-time participants — as paid Explainers, joining over 130 total positions filled across the summer and school-year cycles. This is a paid job, not a traditional academic program: Explainers are employees who engage visitors at exhibits, lead science demonstrations, and support museum operations on the floor.

What makes the program worth noting is the depth of the experience and the institutional setting. Before working with visitors, all Explainers complete more than 60 hours of specialized training, including 20 hours of pre-floor instruction covering science content, exhibit facilitation, career readiness, and youth development. The training is substantive — not orientation-level — and the Exploratorium, one of the world's most respected science and perception museums, is a genuinely unusual workplace for a high schooler. Explainers increasingly provide multilingual visitor support, and experienced participants may take on specialized internship roles or study groups within the museum. A background in science is not required; the hiring team explicitly looks for diversity of background, culture, and perspective across each cohort.

Applications for the summer cohort are typically available in March, posted on the Exploratorium's job listings page under the title "High School Explainer." A valid work permit is required. Students should understand going in that this is a job with real scheduling commitments — Explainers must work the entirety of the summer session — not a drop-in enrichment experience.
For a Bay Area student who wants something genuinely different from a research internship or a classroom program, the Exploratorium Explainer Program offers a rare combination: paid work, science communication training, and daily immersion in one of the most intellectually rich museum environments in the world. More than 3,500 students have held the role since 1969.