SCIENCE FOR FUN H. HENRY PLATT Director. Science Department. Elizabeth Peabody House, Boston, Massachusetts
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HE dream of many a boy-a complete laboratory of his very own where he can experiment to his heart's content, to discover how this complex world is put together-has become a reality for the children who are members of the Science Clubs sponsored by the Elizabeth Peabodv Settlement House in the West End of Boston. This settlement, located in a section where housing is a serious problem, finds that its science departmen: can provide answers for the many questions of the un-
We have discovered that boys and girls from eight to eighteen are eager for opportunities to handle, experiment, and discover things for themselves. In small groups of eight to ten, under the leadership of volunteer
FRANK J A W O R K ~ I ,AGE 16, DEXONSTRATES HIS \TOREING MODEL OF AN OIL FIELD SHOWING THE SOURCES, EXTRACTION. A N D REFINING OF CRUDEPETROLEUM AT T H E
workers from local colleges and from industry, we give them a chance to do this. SCIENCE FAIROF T H E ELIZABETH PEABODY HOUSE Our Science Clubs give the children opportunity for experimentation in our laboratory, instruction, popular science talks and demonstrations, trips to industrial der-privileged children and gives them opportunity to plants and to museums, help in the publication of do many things. These children have no playground science club papers and radio broadcasts, and an Annual but the gutter. The street is their natural meeting Science Fair. Most of the children have little or no place. Settlement workers in such neighborhoods are instruction in science in the public school, so we are in a strategic position to see how shut out such children working in an almost uncultivated field. We have no elaborate equipment a t Elizabeth Peaare from many of the opportunities so important to a body House. Most of it was donated by interested ingrowing child. 265 MICHAEL FUMEROLA, AGE 15, GIVINGA DEMONSTRA-
TION ON THE SUBJECT OF RUBBERAT THE FIFTHANNUAL
dividuals or institutions, but lack of much that is needed is a constant challenge to the boys. They are very ingenius in making what they need-alcohol lamps from glue bottles, test-tube racks from cigar boxes, and so on. But thev have a room and tables and " pas and ruunine water, and a dark room for photography, With these, they often produce results to be envied by betterequipped workers. The Annual Science Fair, when the exhibits prepared by the boys and girls of the Science Clubs are shown,
The prize winning exhibit was a model petroleum field, complete with derricks, gushers, storage tanks, and pipe lines, with a small refinery, complete even to a small chimney from which smoke issued. The creator,
u
BUT PROWD~NG VERY HIGH TEMPERATZTRES. THEFURDEMONSTRATED AT A RECENT SCIENCE FAIROF THE ELIZABETH PEABODV HOUSE NACE WAS
Frank Jaworski, sixteen years old, explained the sources, extraction, refining, and uses of petroleum. Another well-worked-out exhibit was a model SCIENCEFAIR OF THE ELIZABETH PEABODY HOUSE kitchen hot water system, demonstrating the principles involved. Peter Pano, seventeen, showed an enthusireceives much favorable publicity from the press and astic audience how water is drawn from the reservoir, radio. The one hundred fifty boys and girls demon- controlled by a power house, piped into a building, strate their own exhibitions and enjoy the opportunity heated in a boiler, and eventually reaches a hot water to show other children, their parents, and the public, faucet. what they have learned and made. The projects usually Other exhibits included the manufacture of paper, the give important information concerning commercial making of rayon by the cuprammonium process, coalproducts and frequently industrial concerns gladly co- tar products, the distillation of wood, rubber, chemioperate with materials and technical assistance. luminescence, colloids, and a demonstration of the Among the most interesting exhibits a t the recent Brownian movement. Fair was a working model of a human heart, constructed Materials from more than sixty-three industrial, by a sixteen-year-old boy from scrap glass and rubber scientific, and governmental bureaus were utilized in tubing, and so forth, a t the cost of a little over a dollar. these exhibits. As the "blood" pumped through the veins and arteries Such a Fair demonstrates whv the work of the Elizaof the model, i t changed from red to blue and back beth Peabody House in scienc; has grown so rapidly. a ~ a i n as , i t would in a human bodv. It shows how much can be done with very little equipMAURICE MEZOPF, AGE16, DEMONSTRATES HIS MODEL O F TEE MECHANICS O F A HEARTAT THE FIFTH ANNUAL
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ment. That "science is fun" is demonstrated further by the growing number of children waiting for a chance to join oneof the clubs when there is more room. It is noteworthy that in 1937 the General Electric
Company awarded the Elizabeth Peabody House Science Department its Thomas Edison Medal for outstanding work in promoting science activities for children.
