Friday, May 20, 2011

Kids and Science - Yesterday and Today

Ok, so everyone talks about how more kids need to take more science and engineering disciplines. Indeed I agree. It must have been the shift from science and engineering to into legal careers that somehow caused the following shift.

Above is one example from the 50's, an atomic energy lab! Below, a chemistry set from the 40's.

Times have changed, today's sets are an OLPC laptop and Python, a bunch of 74xx logic and 555 timers, or perhaps a LEGO robotics set. But still, for a future scientist trying some hands on chemistry and nuclear science on their own is not a such a bad idea. However, with all the litigation out there, this it came to the chemistry set below. Perhaps its time to add liability waivers to some of the toys - or better call them science education tools.

I'll prop Martin's site here, he's a former colleague and principal toy master at sci toys.

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