50 February 2012 © 2012 The Biochemical Society

Schools in DepthRegulars

Bringing chemistry to life using real-life science stories

It is vital that we now engage young people in science to ensure a strong supply of scientists in the future. Evidence shows that the earlier you can capture their imaginations, the better, to avoid students being turned off science by secondary school. This article describes the strategies I’ve developed to help bring chemistry to life for everyone – even young under-privileged children.

significant amount of science (and each discipline of science) while still at primary school.

A strategy for engagement

Over the years, I have spent much time carefully researching the history of scientists who have accomplished something inspiring in or near London3–6. Many of the resultant stories concerned young men from under-privileged backgrounds who have achieved great success through their employment of science. I therefore wondered whether such stories could be used to interest and inspire public audiences – especially people living locally to where these scientists lived and made their discoveries. I set about testing this theory by surveying the attitudes of different audiences towards these stories, and found the reactions to be quite mixed among adults (see 5,6). However, adults can be very different from children, so I developed the inspirational stories as a means of trying to engage young people. This article is an account of some of my experiences. It shows not only that very young children can understand reasonably complex ideas about science, but also that tales of local scientists can be a successful means of bringing science to life for them.

A remarkable lesson in history

In the mid-19th Century, Prince Albert invited Professor A.W. Hofmann (labelled H in Figure 2) to help to create a college of practical chemistry in London, modelled on that of Liebig in Giesen, where chemistry would be taught mainly through practical work. To Hofmann’s left in the picture is his able assistant, Ed Nicholson (N). Nicholson used practical work to teach the emerging science of chemistry to the group of 30 privileged young men (also in the photo) from middle- and upper-class backgrounds. Many of these scientists they trained went on to become leading English chemists of the Victorian era. One of these students was William Perkin (P) and another was John Newlands.

Catching them young

There is much evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, that it is important to engage young people in science from an early age. To explore this further, I conducted a survey of many career chemists who had recently retired. The results are shown in Figure 1. From this, I concluded that more than 50% of them had ‘caught chemistry’ during their primary school ages – usually through experimenting with chemistry sets at home1.

Furthermore, the steep decline in those career chemists ‘catching chemistry’ much above 13 years implies an optimal age range for ‘catching chemistry’ between about 7 and 13 years. This accords with the findings of the influential sociologist Malcolm Gladwell 2 that, to excel in your chosen field (from music or athletics to science), you must spend 10 000 hours practising and developing your skills.

Therefore, to ensure competent science practitioners at age 21, children need to be learning and doing a

David H. Leaback

Figure 1. A histogram of results from my survey1 of a cohort of recently retired career chemists, giving the ages at which they were first ‘turned on’ to chemistry

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Schools in Depth Regulars

The life of William Perkin

William Perkin was only 17 years old when the photograph in Figure 2 was taken. He was probably the youngest and least privileged student at the College, and his family was from one of the most unruly, disease-ridden and poorest parts of East London. However, none of this appeared to hinder his swift and successful passage through the College’s coursework, or his rapid elevation to assisting Professor Hofmann in his private laboratory. There he learned to make new compounds and to purify them using crystallization procedures he had taught himself in his makeshift home laboratory. Most of all, he liked to listen to Hofmann and colleagues discussing what they hoped to achieve in chemistry. He heard Hofmann’s heartfelt ambition to make a socially useful chemical (such as quinine) from the huge amount of the largely waste material black coal tar3.

Perkin spent some time thinking about this, and believed he might make quinine if he added a bit more oxygen to a coal tar compound he had made at the College, but, when he tried this in his home laboratory, he obtained a disappointing dark sludge instead of gleaming white crystals of quinine. However, he soon found that the product could be made to dye silk a beautiful mauve colour which delighted his sisters4. After much thought, family discussions and adverse advice from experts, young Perkin decided to press ahead with the risky enterprise of making and selling large amounts of the new dye2,4,7.

Using Perkin’s story to inspire

William Perkin’s meteoric rise to success from his humble beginnings serves as an inspirational narrative to bring chemistry to life for young audiences. For example, I told this story to a class of 10-year-olds from Tower Hamlets, London (in the very street where Perkin discovered the dye – see Figure 3), stating that Perkin had made a fortune from his dye. Afterwards, each child wrote an account of the story.

Encouragingly, a large majority (over 80%) of the class wrote enthusiastically of hearing that a youth from near their East End neighbourhood had made such an important discovery. They also greatly favoured the notion of Perkin making up his own mind about what he wanted to do in the future (and making a success of it), following an argument with his father over his choice of career. This was particularly true of the boys, with 94% referencing this part of the story compared with 50% of girls, perhaps indicating the need to highlight male role models (or ‘heroes’) when attempting to engage primary school

age boys. Figure 4 shows the results of my analysis of the children’s written work.

Significantly, this was a class from a poor mixed-race community whose adult relatives had previously shown little interest in the Perkin story in my earlier research into attitudes5. This perhaps highlights that inspirational stories of real-life local scientists can be used to target young people of either genders and a wide range of different backgrounds.

From written accounts to something more dramatic

Following on from my success with the Perkin story, I took my detailed research on another of Professor Hofmann’s students, John Newlands, to a different area of London. Newlands was born and bred in the deprived London district of Elephant and Castle in Southwark. In a primary school nearby, I told a class of 10-year-olds the emotive story of how Newlands had come up with an ingenious ‘Law of Octaves’ theory which offered to make sense of all the many properties of the new chemical elements being discovered at that time. However, when young Newlands presented his new theory to the high and mighty of the Chemical Society, they ridiculed and rejected it. When I discussed that with the children and told them Newlands’ theory was correct, they said that they were used to others rejecting anything from their ‘down and out’ district, and asked if they could act out the sad story as a play. Accordingly, I wrote and produced the play, and it was performed to great acclaim, many times, in several forms (see 1,7 and Figure 5).

Since that project, I have written and produced many London-based science plays in which children act out important chemical science events from their own neighbourhoods. These have included The Early Life of Michael Faraday, performed at the Cuming Museum near Elephant and Castle.

Figure 2. Students, including William Perkin (P), of the Royal College of Chemistry assembled at the rear of the college building in the summer of 1855 with Professor Hofmann (H) and his assistant Ed Nicholson (N).

Figure 3. The class of local 10-year-olds and their teacher beneath the William Perkin memorial plaque I originated near to where he once lived. It was in that house that he tried to synthesize quinine and instead discovered mauveine. © 1988 D.H. Leaback

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Schools in Depth Regulars

1. Leaback, D.H. (2009) Chemistry World 6 842. Gladwell, M. (2008) The Outliers: the Story of Success, Allan Lane, London3. Leaback, D.H. (2000) Some Southwark Science Tales, Authentica

Publications, Radlett 4. Leaback, D.H. (1991) Perkin in the East End of London, Authentica

Publications, Radlett

5. Leaback, D.H. (2009) The Biochemist 31, 45–476. Leaback, D.H. (1994) Sci. Public Affairs, pp. 25–287. Leaback, D.H. (2002) Sci. Public Affairs, pp. 18–198. Dawkins, R. (2011) The Magic of Reality – and How Do You Know What’s

Really True?, Transworld, London

References

that we adults could learn from these caring youngsters’ great concern for ill-conceived verdicts on new scientific developments and their impacts on the lives of others. ■I thank my wife, brother and sons for help in this project; also The Cuming Museum, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity and the many schools concerned.

Figure 6. A scene at the Cuming Museum, Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle, showing the cast of one version of my play, The Early Life of Michael Faraday1. Although no post-performance writing was forthcoming from this group, a round-table discussion indicated how much it had moved them. Afterwards, the boy who had played Michael Faraday, told me it was the best thing in his life so far.

Summary and the future

The above work has brought chemistry into the lives of more sections of society than Hofmann managed to do in his time. However, Hofmann did set in motion the circumstances for the remarkable true science enterprise stories of Perkin, Nicholson and Newlands, which had the power to inspire children aged about 6–11 years, to start eagerly on ‘Gladwell-type’ learning towards socially useful subjects such as chemistry. The success of these real science stories based on true scientific facts would seem to be just what Richard Dawkins wants in his latest publication8. But there are signs that, whereas children at the bottom of the 6–11 year range just love to dress up and act out local romanticized stories, those nearing 11 years of age are sensitive to social aspects of what they act.

The most important finding in this present work is that very young children (in that sensitive 6–11 year range) start by loving dressing up as local scientists or molecules in somewhat romanticized stories, but change as they approach 11 years of age to showing remarkable caring aspects of even their local science. An outstanding example of this was when the Elephant and Castle youngsters said they were used to being ignored because they came from a deprived district, and wanted to act the sad Newlands story because he had been treated likewise rather than encouraged to develop his bright new theory. It seems

Figure 5. A scene outside John Newlands’s birthplace after a performance of my Newlands play by the children. Professor E. Abel can be seen pointing to the memorial plaque I originated to recognize Newlands’s achievement in chemistry. To the right are descendents of Newlands family, including a lady holding a book depicting Newlands’s family tree.

Figure 4. The frequencies of key phrases used by the school children in their accounts of the Perkin story

Subject Matter ItemsI = ‘The Story’ took place near our schoolII = WHP becomes fascinated by crystalsIII = Father Perkin/WHP argument on son’s futureIV =WHP went to City of London School & RCCV = He tries making artificial quinine from anilineVI = But finds he makes a beautiful new purple dyeVII = The Perkins build a successful dye factory and while it was later sold and abandoned they founded a new chemical industry

RCC= Royal College of Chemistry WHP= William Henry Perkin

Get involved

If you would like to run a similar event for young people in your local area, you could apply for one of our Scientific Outreach Grants to help you fund it. We offer up to £1000 to support activities that aim to engage young people or the general public in science. Find out more and apply at www.biochemistry.org/outreachgrants.