I badgered my parents constantly with questions. Where did color come from? What happened to the sugar when one stirred it into the tea? Where did it go? Why did water bubble when it boiled?
Oliver Sacks
Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood
2001
What drives explorers onward and upward? What makes inventors prospect the world for ideas? What fuels children’s insatiable curiosity? Two forces: the need to know and the need to play.
World's tiniest engineers!
In 1956 at a picnic in the San Fernando Valley, Milton Levine observed ants at work and recalled his own boyhood fascination with the insects. As “Uncle Milton,” a novelty manufacturer, he packaged the experience. His Ant Farm invited kids to observe the “world's tiniest engineers” digging tunnels, building roads, and constructing bridges. The company also reassured parents that the colony was “escape proof.”
Atomic-powered play
In 1953, President Eisenhower announced the Atoms for Peace program “to serve the needs, rather than the fears, of mankind.” Uranium could supply “power starved” areas of the world with electricity. Radioactive isotopes promised medical miracles. Future Nobel Prize winners began with atomic energy sets and all manner of other toy science labs advertised as “Fun,” “Easy,” and “Exciting.”
Not that lesson, this lesson
The alphabet blocks that hopeful parents buy to jump-start their infants’ literacy skills carry a payoff in stealthy learning. A toddler might miss the intended lesson entirely but take away others. “Hmmm. Look what happens when I put all the colors together? I’ll make this pile bigger. Then I’ll push it, uh-oh!” The child sorts, compares, and begins to discover cause and effect.
