On the Ferry to Mare Island, Wednesday, August 13th, 2025
By James Salazar | Examiner staff writer
Jul 27, 2025
Marcus Wojtkowiak, director of the Randall Museum, said the institution’s Corona Heights location “offers plenty of opportunity to take our learning from inside the building to outside.”
There’s no time like the summer for the Randall Museum.
Perched atop a Corona Heights hill, the 74-year-old San Francisco educational institution has long taught local children about nature, science and art through intuitive, hands-on learning experiences. Its day and overnight camps remain seasonal staples, but the museum has recently sought to introduce programs to residents in other parts of The City who don’t live near the museum or aren’t physically capable of making the trek uphill.
“We’re really meeting people where they’re at,” said Marcus Wojtkowiak, the museum director.
Namesake Josephine Randall said she intended the museum — which opened in its current home in 1951 — to be “a place that would foster a love of science, natural history, and the arts,” according to the institution’s website. These days, Wojtkowiak said that the institution’s education is generally done through the lens of understanding California and exploring the state’s flora, fauna, geology and people.
Employees say that the institution’s purposeful, project-based lessons, activities and day camps help young campers learn new skills and topics, knowledge that can then be applied to other aspects of their lives. Appetites for learning are cultivated by the museum’s team of instructors, who employees say carry an attitude of knowing they too can be taught valuable lessons by campers.
Recent developments have given the institution more opportunities to take its work to other parts of The City, allowing employees to educate more residents.
Wojtkowiak, who started working at the museum in 2010 as a part-time science program coordinator and instructor, said that the building’s location in Corona Heights Park is “incredibly helpful” to employees as the area is “one of the more untouched spots” in The City.
“We have this great surrounding that offers plenty of opportunity to take our learning from inside the building to outside,” Wojtkowiak said. “No matter what the program is, we can reference rocks and plants and formations. We can look out across San Francisco and talk about what it looked like before humans populated the land.”
Randall Museum focuses on ‘really meeting people where they’re at’
Greg