This week we talk with Steve Silberman, contributing editor for Wired Magazine. Steve talks to us about the demise of the chemistry set (as related to his article Don't Try this at Home) and what that might mean for the future of scientific curiosity in our children.
Preview from the Show:
In the last few years, a kind of perfect
storm of concerns and legislation has arisen that has had the unintended effect of discouraging amateur chemistry.
Kids
really want to fall in love with science. And I know how much the
teachers really want to communicate their own enthusiasm about science
to their kids. But with fears of liability, and these restrictive
laws, and just a kind of general paranoia, instead what's being
transmitted to kids is some kind of combination of boredom and fear.
I
would say that one of the reasons that I became a science writer was
that I had a well stocked chemistry set when I was in elementary
school, that contained many things that I am sure are now illegal.
If
we're cutting off the possibility of future generations of being
interested in science - at the same time that the performance of
American kids in science starts to go down around 12th grade, the
number of science and technology related jobs in the world are going
continually up - so we're creating a gap here where we need people in
science and technology, but we're no longer giving them the access to
the things that could help them become interested in the subject.
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