U.S. Leadership in Science May Depend on 8th-Graders

[petek]

Right on the heels of the Live Science article, Wired Magazine has "Don't Try This At Home" which deals with how people are developing a fear of science - chemistry in particular - and how difficult it is becoming to persue this interest without running afoul of liability phobia, regulators and the law.

I have seen this in our school system, where in the middle school, most "interesting" chemistry experiments are now done as demonstrations, if at all. For my part, growing up with a chemical engineer father, it was natural that we'd spend quality time making black powder and sky rockets together. That experience taught me the fundimentals of chemical safety, experimental procedure and the pure joy of things that go "bang". In one high school chemistry lab, we distilled rum - a thimble-full per person, if you did it right. I'm quite sure anyone trying these experiments in public these days would learn a lot more about the law than about chemistry!

The thing is, both of my examples from my childhood were safe educational experiences which made lasting impressions on me. It certainly helped that I had expert mentors who helped me learn without losing fingers or getting in trouble! I pursued an electrical engineering career rather than one in chemistry, but the lessons in experimentation translated right over to circuit design, quality assurance, and a lot of my current work in process automation.

The Wired article concludes with this clear message: "taking chemicals and lab equipment away from kids who love science is like taking crayons and paints away from a kid who may grow up to be an artist.” While few of our members pursue careers in chemistry, I'm sure we all can appreciate its importance and how sad it is that our system is probably turning young people away from it. And from the wonder of making things that go bang.