I'd like to offer Robert Scherrer, the author of this article, some cheese with his whine. > But I could have created a better chemistry set from the liquids i

I'd like to offer Robert Scherrer, the author of this article, some cheese with his whine. > But I could have created a better chemistry set from the liquids in my own refrigerator. I was a student in a mostly remote, freshman college science class. Other than our one week on campus, all of our chemistry "experiments" were done with things we had in our house or that could be bought at any corner store. There are plenty of people who do this for a variety of reasons - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=at+home+chemistry&t=ffhp https://duckduckgo.com/?q=at+home+chemistry&t=ffhp (And since he seems to think that getting in trouble is important, I feel the need to point out that you can still get in trouble with chemicals found around the house - e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Chlorine-based_bleaches https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach#Chlorine-based_bleaches . Tangent, many years ago I had a friend who did not know this – until he landed in the ER after mixing way too many and varied household cleaners.) > Assuming you can even figure out how to pry it open, the inside is as mysterious and inscrutable as the outside. Not if you have a minimally knowledgeable mentor (i.e. knowledgeable enough to know how to lookup what you find online). If you have a kid and aren't able to be their knowledgeable mentor, you and your kid/s really should check out your closest makerspace/s. >Yet how can we expect junior scientists to daydream, when they can be playing computer games instead? Give them games with scientific content, e.g. - http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/games.aspx http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online_science/games.aspx - http://www.onlinecolleges.net/50-great-sites-for-serious-educational-games/ http://www.onlinecolleges.net/50-great-sites-for-serious-edu... In fact, there's an emerging field of education focused on Game-Based Learning: - http://newmedia.org/game-based-learning--what-it-is-why-it-works-and-where-its-going.html http://newmedia.org/game-based-learning--what-it-is-why-it-w... - http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/games/index.html And look, there's even some hyper-relevant research Becoming Chemists through Game-Based Inquiry Learning: The Case of "Legends of Alkhimia" - http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985421 http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985421 / http://www.ejel.org/issue/download.html?idArticle=188 http://www.ejel.org/issue/download.html?idArticle=188 that shows... >Two evaluation criteria were used: (1) effectiveness of separation, and (2) demonstration of conceptual understanding of chemistry. We found that the Alkhimia students significantly outperformed the control students when assessed on the extent to which effective separation was achieved in the students' proposed solution (t75 = 2.56, p = 0.026) and when assessed with respect to conceptual understanding of chemistry in the separation task (t75 = 3.41, p = 0.002).