Snowflakes in Hell

A few weeks ago Wired Science on PBS had a segment on the disappearance of the home chemistry set. It was a pretty balanced report, bringing up legitimate questions of safety for a product marketed for children. However, a consequence of taking these somewhat dangerous products off the market was that number of chemistry majors has been in a freefall for the last two decades. It also chastised modern chemistry sets for labelling the set with blurbs like “no chemicals”, and putting clown-like caricatures of scientists and chemists on the box.

Another part of the report dealt with the difficulty that chemistry teachers face in trying to get chemicals to stock their labs and *gasp* actually teach chemistry.

Also, side tidbit, the Chemical Heritage Society is located in Philadelphia and does have an exhibit on chemistry sets.

I had a chemistry set when I was a kid and now I make a living as..gasp…a chemical technician.

What has my country become?