Mike Petrich is the Director of the Making Collaborative at the Exploratorium, a museum of science, art, and human perception located in San Francisco, California. He is curious about how people develop personal and unique understandings of the world for themselves. More specifically, his interest in how environments can be designed to foster learning and encourage deep thinking led to a graduate degree in education design and technology, and ultimately to a leadership role within the Learning Studio. With a background in fine arts, filmmaking, and photography, he applies the act of careful observation to much of his work as a facilitator. He has been working at this for 20 years, with audiences as diverse as museum visitors, primary school students, Tibetan monks, prison inmates, and graduate school researchers.