Tag Archives: young scientists

Domestic Science – Not

I’m not the first to ask why science has become less popular with school children and young people. It’s a fact, at least in the UK and the USA, that fewer students are selecting science subjects at school or making a college or professional career out of science.

While there are doubtless many complex reasons behind the decline, some of today’s thinkers put at least part of the blame on the reduction in first hand experience and active personal experimentation in science that young people engage in.

And could something as apparently innocent as the emasculation of the home chemistry set, or the retreat by schools from the more spectacular classroom science demonstrations, be a contributing cause?

While I’ve been musing over my own formative influences, which I put down to: inherent curiosity, parental support, inspiring teachers, a home culture of learning and DIY (do-it-yourself), and relatively unhindered experimentation; my latest reading is a warning of what can happen when home grown science goes too far.

David Hahn was an adolescent Boy Scout from Michigan when he built an operational model nuclear reactor in his parents’ garden shed. His improbable but true story is told by Ken Silverstein in The Radioactive Boyscout: The True Story of a Boy Who Built a Nuclear Reactor in His Shed.

Silverstein describes Hahn’s obsession with nuclear power and radioactivity, culminating in his own nuclear pile. It’s a frightening and fascinating study in single-minded ingenuity; the ultimate expression of ‘string and elastic bands’ resourcefulness. But it’s also a sad tale of misguided talent and lost opportunity, with Hahn’s informal career in science never blossoming beyond the confines of his backyard. I’ve just finished this book from 2004 – another volume from my latest ‘3 for £5’ trawl – and can heartily recommend it. It’s a good adult read, plus you won’t find a more mischievous gift for any young person with a maturing interest in home science experiments.

Hahn’s own inspiration was the doubly infamous Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, a product of 1950s/60s US techno-optimism that was subsequently banned from most US libraries. Certainly, some of the children’s experiments described within its colourful covers are way beyond anything that today we would consider safe – for the child or the publisher.

There is of course nothing new under the sun, and, despite the recent plethora of mimic Victoriana ‘thing-to-do’ books, titled ‘The Dangerous Books for Boys, Girls,…Whatever’, nothing compares with the original bane of the enlightened Victorian parent – ‘The Young Man’s Book Of Amusement‘. Packed with all sorts of nonsense, ranging from

the harmless to the downright suicidal, my favourite wheeze from this 1850’s bible of curiosity is the Artificial Volcano. The experimental procedure, which results in a runaway exothermic reaction of iron filings and sulphur, specifies minimum quantities of both reactants such that, in the spirit of all good compost heap construction, a critical and sustaining thermal mass is achieved – in this case 28lbs of each. The 56lb of damp mixture is buried two feet below the ground, and left to do its stuff. Never having got up the nerve or the resources to try this, on any scale, I can only imagine the combined impact on the senses of vigourous suphur dioxide production, rivers of molten sulphur, showers of burning iron particles, all escaping through an earth bulging under the pressure of a man-made magma chamber. Environmentally friendly – not. Politically correct – not. Fun, thought provoking, and inspiring….? For more excerpts from this cheery manual visit Lateralscience (but don’t fall for the apochryphal stories surrounding the text – which is real).

I’m not endorsing the building of volcanoes or nuclear piles, in our back gardens or anywhere else, but we should consider what has happened over the last thirty or forty years with regard to our freedoms and restrictions in the home-science department. Are we to be trusted with only baking soda and citric acid? – apparently so.

I’ll wind up with a taste of how some of the ‘today’s thinkers’ I referred to earlier feel about the subject of scientific inspiration and freedom for self-experimentation. “Hands-on experience and experiments” was one of the ten categories highlighted by respondents to a 2006 study by the Spiked team who, working with Pfizer, asked some well-known scientists/thinkers (including Simon Singh whom I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting recently) – ‘”What inspired you to take up science?’” Many respondents emphasised the importance during their formative years of being able to do their own independent testing, experimentation, and indeed – risk taking. Here is the complete summary of responses.

Young Scientists, Fingerprints, and PVC

Alright class, settle down. Hands up all those who remember the original Young Scientists of the Year competition? I’m talking about the weekly BBC1 television reportage, between 1972 and 1981, of the bloody battles for scientific supremacy waged between competing UK schools. This was prime time science on the telly, presented by Paddy Feeny and John Tidmarsh, with the enthusiastic participation of judges Sir George Porter, Prof. Heinz Wolff (pictured), Dr Colin Blakemore, Prof Eric Ash, Prof Aubrey Manning and Dr Donald Broadbent.
Gateway Young Scientists with Heinz Wolf
Gateway Young Scientists with Prof. Heinz Wolff

This post is something of a reminisce for me – because – I was there; albeit as an attendee, not a competitor, at Leicester’s Gateway Grammar School. Although too young to participate, I saw the effect the show had on the school, its pupils, and the viewing public.

So, beyond the nostalgia, can we learn something from the Young Scientists phenomenon?

Gateway's winning Fingerprint Analyser
Gateway's winning Fingerprint Analyser

The show’s origins trace back to the formation in 1963 of the Science and Features Department of the BBC: the group that gave us Tomorrow’s World, the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, and the iconic productions of Jonathan Miller, Jacob Bronowski and David Attenborough. The team also produced Heinz Wolff’s next project after Young ScientistsThe Great Egg Race.

Production entailed a combination of material filmed at the participants’ schools, cut with Q&A sequences from the studio. During the judging, contestants sat nervously with their rigs as backdrop.

My school participated twice. A project on PVC reached but floundered in the final, while an invention that automatically scanned fingerprints won in the UK final and the competition’s European equivalent, hosted by Phillips in Eindhoven. The self-effacing commentary of the PVC team, reproduced from the School Magazine, reveals the production pressures, and gives an honest insight into how laboratory science really works when delivering breakthroughs to order.

We had won the heat largely on the technical achievement of building the machine and so we made it our policy to concentrate on doing some research with it rather than make modifications to improve its working. With reactions taking up to eight hours and only a few weeks to go before the recording of the final, we had to start working late again and on occasions were still at school at about 2 a.m. During this time we managed to produce two polymers, B.S.R. and P.E.O. but with the limit on our time we were able to complete only a preliminary investigation into these polymers. From these results we managed to draw a few vague conclusions and plan our future research. Armed with this we went to Birmingham for the recording of the final. We were not so apprehensive about what would happen this time as we had the experience of our first visit behind us. As expected, the procedure was much the same as before and we approached the day for judging and filming in a much calmer state of mind than on the first occasion. However, as soon as the first judge, Sir George Porter, began to question us we began to realise that all was not going well. He continually probed us about details of the process which we had only just begun to study. Because of the short period of time which was available to us between heat and final we had not been able to familiarise ourselves with all aspects of the chemistry of the process. Consequently our answers to our questions were rather vague and lacking in the detail that he seemed to want.

The 'Competition'  -  Hiss!  Boo!
The 'competition' - Hiss! Boo!

The series ran for nine years on BBC1. Why so successful? The popularity, I suggest, was partly due to the show’s tangible competitiveness – the ‘tune in again next week’ factor. The content itself was made accessible through the pupils’ explanations and chatty atmosphere of the studio. By raising the status of school science and ordinary pupils, there may even have been some flattery of parents by association.

Were there deeper benefits beyond entertainment value?  Who knows how many fifteen year olds were swayed to science A-Levels by an inspiring episode of Young Scientists?  I believe the participant schools were strengthened by the experience, and others motivated to reach the grade. Involvement would encourage higher quality teacher and pupil applicants to the school, and raise the school’s status with universities and employers. For those directly involved, the show was a springboard.

Could the formula be repeated?  Was Young Scientists simply ‘of its time’ – never to be repeated?  Promotion of school science is now more important than ever.  Science competitions for young people still exist, but do they afford science the public exposure, status, and continuity offered by Young Scientists. Critics might say the format wreaked of elitism (the Grammar to Comprehensive school ratio would be interesting). Do schools have the time now? Would staff be motivated and willing? What about health and safety; PVC manufacture at 2 a.m.?

Despite the obstacles, the goal of broadcasting innovative school science – on prime time national television – with our greatest scientists in attendance – is a noble aspiration.

Could the UK public again be enticed to watch school kids do science? I like to think so.