STRAIGHT TALK TO PARENT'S 
How Good Are the Science Labs in Your Youngster's School ? 
Good laboratories teach a priceless skill: How to figure things out Here's a yardstick to measure your school 
By John Kord Lagemann 

IMAGINE trying to teach your child how to swim without getting him wet. That's no sillier than trying to teach him science without giving him a chance to experiment in a laboratory. Why? Because science is not solely a great bundle of organized facts, like some other studies. It is, in addition, an exer-cise in the use of a sharp-edged detective tool—the scientific method. The scientific method is one of the all-time great achievements of the human in-tellect. It is a way of thinking, a wonder-ing, skeptical, I'm-from-Missouri atti-tude. And it is a way of finding things out, the don't-go-by-the-book, let's-try-it-and-see operation. Without it, you'd be back behind a horse-drawn plow. With it the whole wonderful world of modern civilization has been built. The scientific method is not just for scientists. Your youngsters can use it constantly to find answers to problems of everyday life—buying a car, choosing a job, even voting. The guidance director of a Midwest high school told me, "You can spot the science students when youngsters come in for counseling. They have learned from experience how to organize their thoughts, define their goals and weigh the facts before making up their minds." If you want your children to grow up with qualities like those, they need labo-ratory training. Are they getting it? Unfortunately, laboratory instruction is perfunctory in 
 

PHOTO BY W. W. MORRIS 
many American high schools, nonexistent in some. It is totally lacking in most elementary schools. According to a survey by the U. S. Office of Education, one out of four high schools tries to teach chemistry without a laboratory. The same is true of physics. Only three out of five schools provide lab work with their biology courses. In junior high, only about 40 percent of the ninth-grade general-science courses in-clude lab work, and the figure drops fur-ther for the seventh and eighth grades. Other studies indicate that, today, more attention is being given to laboratories. But the lack is still serious, particularly in the small schools which educate sub-stantial numbers of American children. It is an educational deficit second only to the shortage of science teachers. The teachers themselves are alarmed. Robert H. Carleton of the National Science Teachers Association pulled no punches when he said recently, "It's time we stopped cheating our children. The child who receives no lab instruction in science is being betrayed as surely as if the school had taught him half-truths." How about your youngsters? You don't have to be a scientist to find out nor a politician to do something about laboratory training for your children. The labs in your schools can be judged by simple, non-technical standards. If you find improvements are needed, your local PTA and other civic groups can work with school authorities to provide them. There are three questions to ask:

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Atomic-age physics lab: Could this be your school? ATOM-SMASHERS AND CLOUD CHAMBERS in school labs? Absolutely. Today's youngsters must learn today's science. They start with the atomic picture of the universe. In many schools, students build simple nuclear instruments. Others make use of moderately priced working models that are now becoming available. At right, Berkeley ( Calif. ) High senior Ed Miller pulls sparks off a high-voltage generator while Dave Newsom and teacher M. Van Waynen observe. The two 17-year-olds are watching for the thin streaks of cosmic rays in a cloud chamber in the center photo. At far right, Pete Piatkowski, eight, assembles a small Van de Graaff machine from a kit. These instruments are made by Atomic Laboratories of Berkeley. 

• Is laboratory work a regular part of every science course? • Are facilities adequate? • Are teachers using the facilities to give the training your youngsters need? Don't accept such brush-off answers as "We can get by without labs," or "We can't afford them." Your youngsters can't be properly educated without lab experi-ence. And the expense need not be as great as some educators appear to believe. A place to experiment. Oddly enough, while the cost of lab facilities frightens many school administrators, others are snowing the children under with nones-sential equipment. Not only does this waste public funds your money—but it actually interferes with proper training. There are some basic things your chil-dren must have: workbenches with sinks, and utilities—gas, electricity, water. These do cost more than the desks that outfit a history classroom. But the ex-pense is not out of line with what most schools spend on athletics and band in-struments. Beyond this basic investment, elemen-tary and high-school labs don't need very much at all. That is the startling con-clusion of the Physical Science Study Committee, a group of 65 of the nation's top scientists and educators who are now working out a radically new approach to physics instruction. Dr. Elbert Little, executive director of the committee, told me, "There is no essential piece of equipment which a science teacher and his students can't 156 POPULAR SCIENCE 
build out of cheap materials readily avail-able in any community. Apart from the initial outlay for the plant, the cost of laboratory equipment and supplies need run no higher than $10 per student." Dr. Little's committee is concerned about economy, of course. But that's not the main reason for its interest in build-it-yourself equipment. Youngsters learn more when they design and build the ap-paratus they need for experiment. The committee's experts have shown how many useful laboratory instruments can be contrived from such odds and ends as rubber bands, pins, razor blades, soda straws and marble& For instance: A stroboscope to "stop" rapidly rotating machinery was made from tongue de-pressors, a tin can, a snap fastener and wire; a balance that will weigh 1/300,000 of an ounce (the mark left by a pencil is that heavy) was made from straws, wood and pins; and a rangefinder more accurate than a $40 camera accessory was made from wood, mirrors and string. Since fancy ready-made equipment isn't always necessary or even desirable, you can tell more about the quality of your schools' lab program by asking how it makes sure your children have the things they actually need: • Do students build much of their own apparatus? The Physical Science Study Committee's lab manual is not yet published, but other books and magazines describing homemade equipment are available. (For example: the UNESCO Source Book for Science Teaching, coin-