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As a child of the 80's I'd also recommend you introduce him to Mr. Wizard and give him the fun side of it as well which I believe increases interest in the subject nicely. While he passed away, you are still able to order the shows from his website. http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/

The only true TV scientist is Beakman.

I'm going to assume you just aren't aware of Mr. Wizard because he's old. His show started before my time, black & white in the 50s and 60s. But Nickelodean brought it back as Mr. Wizard's World in the 80s, so I know he qualifies as a true TV scientist.

(insert your favorite nutjob scientist here)

Bill Nye or back in the day Mr Wizard http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/

When I have a kid, I'm going to look up the set list from a 1960's chemistry kit (I still have the manual), buy the equipment, and lay my hands on as many of the chemicals as I can.

Part of the stupidity is, of course, the ridiculous prohibitions on "shipping chemicals" these days. It's easier to go out and get several points of rather impure potassium nitrate (fertilizer) from a feed store than it is to get a very small amount of pure stuff from a chemical supply company, packaged and labeled.

Of course, you could also teach your kid methods for purifying chemicals... but they you're a mean, evil nasty terrarist rawr.

FFS, they can't describe any number of chemicals that "asplode" on television these days. Thermite is a binary compound and they had to "hide" what one of the components is, I mean come on, how stupid is that? Mr. Wizard, back in the day, used to tell you every bit of what was used - to recreate some of the experiments, they specifically said to have your parents go out and buy certain things (dry cleaning bag + alcohol burner = hot air balloon?) and do it safely WITH them; these days, even for easily safely try-able stuff, Mythbusters has to stick a big "don't try this at home EVAR" warning on the front of every show lest some little moron injure himself. And their dedicated "DO try this at home" book has been languishing at the publishers for over two years now from what I hear.

If you really want to interest your two rugrats in basic science, you need to go back to the basics: Watch Mr. Wizard. Not only did Mr. Wizard teach basic science, he did it with experiments that you could easily duplicae at home. And, he did it live, with no editing, no retakes, no special effects to make things come out right.

Everyone was interested in it. The Space Race was still ongoing, magazines like Popular Science proliferated, and we Cub Scout and Boy Scout kids worked hard on our radio and electricity or bridge-building experiments. We all wanted to be scientists when we grew up.

Now, everyone wants to be "in entertainment." Even the most well-known "scientists" are really CELEBRITIES more than anything else; they're famous for being famous. Instead of the staid, sober "Mr. Wizard," you have "Bill Nye the Science Guy" from about a decade ago, or the new Sid The Science Kid. It's all about fun and flash and, well, "celebrity," entertainment.

We used to be "entertained" by the IDEAS behind what we were learning. We had imagination enough to extrapolate ideas like "hey, if I can make this model rocket fly up to 500 feet, maybe one day I can make one that goes the the Moon or Mars!"

Now, it's all about what someone else is doing, for our entertainment, on TV. Don't need "hands-on," we can just watch someone else do "Science" that really just looks like an entertaining video game.

Perhaps if we could get the kids back to doing REAL science - after all, when you're eight years old the same experiments that the scientists of three hundred years ago were performing for the first time are certainly NEWS to you! - instead of just seeking to entertain them, they might start to take it seriously.

And that would be reflected in what we are reading and talking about as well.

Mr. Wizard, and 3 2 1 Contact are fantastic programs. They should be still on TV in syndication now, but sadly they are not. I would also recommend Cosmos w/ Carl Sagan. The Science Cannel has been re broadcasting that series. Hands down the best introductory science documentary series.
Mr. Wizard
3-2-1 Contact!
Cosmos on the Science Channel

I used to watch this show as a kid and it was wonderful. Mr. Wizard has passed away but his family still sells DVDs that are a collection of his shows.

They are all black and white and shot in one continuous show with no commercial breaks (it was live TV back then) but he explains all sorts of chemistry, physics, and everyday things in ways that kids can understand. The show is based on demonstrations that kids help out with as Mr. Wizard explains the concepts and reasons.

On DVD, it's really easy to watch a show with a young person and pause it at appropriate places to discuss what Mr. Wizard is doing. It works great and my girlfriend's daughter even says the shows are way better than what they show at her school for their science class.

Getting a basic understanding of how things work is key to being able to learn the more complicated things. Plus, these kinds of things give kids confidence to excel.

Mr. Wizard DVDs are available at: http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/

with some surface-tension reducing soap

I'm gonna take a guess to say that you learned this from Mr. Wizard?

I remember this episode well - it is a simple but very awe-inspiring (at least from a geek's perspective) experiment. It goes like this:

      1) Fill a cookie tray with water
      2) Pepper the top of the water in order to *see* the movements of the surface tension
      3) Carefully place a small amount of soap in the center of the tray
      4) Watch the pepper scatter to the edges of the pan as the tension breaks

If you have a kid, then you need to go do this experiment with them NOW!

RIP Don Herbert - you are one of the main reasons that I am a geek today.

Indeed! Thanks for spurring that moment of research.

Mr. Wizard Studios - Home Page
http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/

http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/

Predictably, though, the site is just about impossible to get to right now. Judging from the Google cache there are 8 DVDs each with 4 episodes, for $17.95 each.

From my perspective, edutainment began before the PC. The original Mr. Wizard shows are available http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/ and in my opinion still far superior as a teaching tool than the more kinetic (and Fun! Fun! Fun!) Big Blue Marble of the 70s and 80s.

You could buy them on DVD if you want.

http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/watchmrwizardvolume 1.htm

I thought Mr. Wizard was far more popular.

Absolutely. Put my vote in for Mister Wizard.
http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/

Bill Nye was a bit after my time, but does anyone remember Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon? Apparently he was around even when my parents were growing up, on NBC.

Check out this site: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/W/htmlW/watchmrw iz/watchmrwiz.htm
for some good history on Don Herbert, the real name of Mr. Wizard.

Here is his official page, which says Don operates the site himself! Cool.