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 Education for a New Generation: The Chemistry Set in History, Science History Institute |
A chemistry set is an educational toy allowing the user (typically a teenager) to perform simple chemistry experiments.
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| Education for a New Generation: The Chemistry Set in History, Science History Institute |
A chemistry set is an educational toy allowing the user (typically a teenager) to perform simple chemistry experiments.
The forerunners of the chemistry set were 17th century books on "natural magick", "which all excellent wise men do admit and embrace, and worship with great applause; neither is there any thing more highly esteemed, or better thought of, by men of learning." [1] Authors, such as Giambattista della Porta, included chemical magic tricks and scientific puzzles along with more serious topics. [1] [2]
The earliest chemistry sets were developed in the 18th century in England and Germany to teach chemistry to adults. In 1791, Description of a portable chest of chemistry : or, Complete collection of chemical tests for the use of chemists, physicians, mineralogists, metallurgists, scientific artists, manufacturers, farmers, and the cultivators of natural philosophy by Johann Friedrich August Göttling, translated from German, was published in English. [3] Friedrich Accum of London, England also sold portable chemistry sets and materials to refill them. [4] Primarily used for training druggists and medical students, they could also be carried and used in the field. [5]
Scientific kits also attracted well-educated members of the upper class who enjoyed experimenting and demonstrating their results. [5] James Woodhouse of Philadelphia presented a Young Chemist's Pocket Companion (1797) with an accompanying portable laboratory, specifically targeted ladies and gentlemen. Jane Marcet's books on chemistry helped to popularize chemistry as a well-to-do pastime for both men and women. [4]
Beginning in the late 1850s John J. Griffin & Sons sold a line of "chemical cabinets", eventually offering 11 categories. These were marketed primarily to adults including elementary school teachers as well as students at the Royal Naval College, the Royal Agricultural Society, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. [4]
In the mid to late 1800s England, magic and illusion toys enabled children to make their own fireworks, create disappearing inks and cause changes in color, tricks which were mostly chemically based. [6] The Columbian Cyclopedia of 1897 defines "CHEMISTRY TOYS" as "mostly pyrotechnic; recommended as illustrating to the young the rudiments of chemistry, but probably more dangerous than efficient for such use", listing a variety of hazardous examples. [7]
Beginning in the early 1900s, modern chemistry sets targeted younger people with the intention to popularize chemistry. In the United States, Porter Chemical Company and the A. C. Gilbert Company produced the best known sets. Although Porter and Gilbert were the largest American producers of chemistry sets, other manufacturers such as the Skilcraft corporation were also active. [5]
John J. Porter and his brother Harold Mitchell Porter began The Porter Chemical Company in 1914. Their initial purpose was to sell packaged chemicals, but they soon introduced kits. John researched the experiments, while Harold wrote the instruction manuals. Their earliest toys, under the "Chemcraft" trademark, were "chemical magic" sets, selling for less than one dollar (or about $25 in 2017 [8] ). By the 1920s, they sold six different sets, the largest of which sold for $25 (or about $320 in 2017 [9] ). Their range of toys broadened throughout the 1930s. [5] In the 1950s it was possible to buy toys featuring radioactive ores, such as the "Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory," which included a Geiger counter and cloud chamber. [10]
Alfred Carlton Gilbert earned money by performing magic tricks while a medical student at Yale. He and John Petrie formed the Mysto Manufacturing Company (later the A. C. Gilbert Company) in 1909, and began selling boxed magic sets. By 1917, they sold chemistry sets, which they produced through World War II, in spite of restrictions on materials. Robert Treat Johnson, noting the number of chemistry students at Yale whose interest in the science began with a chemistry set, argued the production of chemistry sets was a "patriotic duty." [5]
Toy companies promoted chemistry sets through advertising campaigns, the "Chemcraft Chemist Club" and its accompanying "Chemcraft Science Magazine", comic books, and essay contests such as Porter's "Why I want to be a scientist". The goal of attracting students to a potential career in chemistry was often explicit in the sets' naming and promotion. [5] Chemistry sets may have been the first American toys marketed toward parents with the goal of "improving" children for success in later life. [10]
The target market for chemistry sets was almost exclusively boys, deemed "young men of science." However, during the 1950s, Gilbert introduced a set targeting girls. They sold the set in an attractive pink box, but the set identified girls as "laboratory assistants" or "lab technicians," not scientists. [5] [10]
In 1971, a Johnny Horizon Environmental Test Kit was licensed by the U. S. Department of the Interior and produced by Parker Brothers. It included four air pollution tests and six water pollution tests for young environmental scientists. [11] The Johnny Horizon Environmental Test Kit was marketed to both boys and girls. [12]
Well-known chemistry sets from the United Kingdom include the 1960s and 1970s sets by Thomas Salter Science (produced in Scotland) and later Salter Science, then the "MERIT" sets through the 1970s and 1980s. Dekkertoys created a range of sets which were similar, complete with glass test tubes of dry chemicals.
Around the 1960s, safety concerns began to limit the range of materials and experiments available in chemistry sets. In the United States, the Federal Hazardous Substances Labeling Act of 1960, the Toy Safety Act of 1969, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, established in 1972, and the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 all introduced new levels of regulation, [4] which led to the decline of chemistry sets' popularity during the 1970s and 1980s. [13] The A. C. Gilbert Company went out of business in 1967, and the Porter Chemical Company went out of business in 1984. [4]
Modern chemistry sets, with a few exceptions, tend to include a more restricted range of chemicals and simplified instructions. Many chemistry kits are single use, containing only the types and amounts of chemicals for a specific application. [14] [15] Several authors note from the 1980s on, concerns about illegal drug production, terrorism, and legal liability have led to chemistry sets becoming increasingly bland and unexciting. [16] [17] [18] [19]
Nonetheless, a GCSE equipment set was produced, offering students better equipment, and there is a more up-market range of sets available from Thames & Kosmos such as the C3000 Kit. [4] [20]
Typical contents found in chemistry sets, including equipment and chemicals, might include:
The experiments described in the instruction manual typically require a number of chemicals not shipped with the chemistry set, because they are common household chemicals:
Other chemicals, including strong acids, bases and oxidizers cannot be safely shipped with the set and others having a limited shelf life have to be purchased separately from a drug store:
In chemistry, a salt is a chemical compound consisting of an ionic assembly of positively charged cations and negatively charged anions, which results in a compound with no net electric charge. A common example is table salt, with positively charged sodium ions and negatively charged chloride ions.
The ammonium cation is a positively charged polyatomic ion with the chemical formula NH+4 or [NH4]+. It is formed by the protonation of ammonia. Ammonium is also a general name for positively charged (protonated) substituted amines and quaternary ammonium cations, where one or more hydrogen atoms are replaced by organic or other groups.
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An oxidizing agent is a substance in a redox chemical reaction that gains or "accepts"/"receives" an electron from a reducing agent. In other words, an oxidizer is any substance that oxidizes another substance. The oxidation state, which describes the degree of loss of electrons, of the oxidizer decreases while that of the reductant increases; this is expressed by saying that oxidizers "undergo reduction" and "are reduced" while reducers "undergo oxidation" and "are oxidized". Common oxidizing agents are oxygen, hydrogen peroxide, and the halogens.
Chemistry is the physical science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions.
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ATC code B05Blood substitutes and perfusion solutions is a therapeutic subgroup of the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System, a system of alphanumeric codes developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the classification of drugs and other medical products. Subgroup B05 is part of the anatomical group B Blood and blood forming organs.
Potassium sulfate (US) or potassium sulphate (UK), also called sulphate of potash (SOP), arcanite, or archaically potash of sulfur, is the inorganic compound with formula K2SO4, a white water-soluble solid. It is commonly used in fertilizers, providing both potassium and sulfur.
Murashige and Skoog medium is a plant growth medium used in the laboratories for cultivation of plant cell culture. MS0 was invented by plant scientists Toshio Murashige and Folke K. Skoog in 1962 during Murashige's search for a new plant growth regulator. A number behind the letters MS is used to indicate the sucrose concentration of the medium. For example, MS0 contains no sucrose and MS20 contains 20 g/L sucrose. Along with its modifications, it is the most commonly used medium in plant tissue culture experiments in the laboratory. However, according to recent scientific findings, MS medium is not suitable as a nutrient solution for deep water culture or hydroponics.
In chemical nomenclature, the IUPAC nomenclature of inorganic chemistry is a systematic method of naming inorganic chemical compounds, as recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). It is published in Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry. Ideally, every inorganic compound should have a name from which an unambiguous formula can be determined. There is also an IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry.
Kipp's apparatus, also called a Kipp generator, is an apparatus designed for preparation of small volumes of gases. It was invented around 1844 by the Dutch pharmacist Petrus Jacobus Kipp and widely used in chemical laboratories and for demonstrations in schools into the second half of the 20th century.
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A pyrotechnic composition is a substance or mixture of substances designed to produce an effect by heat, light, sound, gas/smoke or a combination of these, as a result of non-detonative self-sustaining exothermic chemical reactions. Pyrotechnic substances do not rely on oxygen from external sources to sustain the reaction.
A dough conditioner, flour treatment agent, improving agent or bread improver is any ingredient or chemical added to bread dough to strengthen its texture or otherwise improve it in some way. Dough conditioners may include enzymes, yeast nutrients, mineral salts, oxidants and reductants, bleaching agents and emulsifiers. They are food additives combined with flour to improve baking functionality. Flour treatment agents are used to increase the speed of dough rising and to improve the strength and workability of the dough.
Chemische Fabrik Kalk (CFK) was a German chemicals company based in Kalk, a city district of Cologne. The company was founded in 1858 as Chemische Fabrik Vorster & Grüneberg, Cöln by Julius Vorster and Hermann Julius Grüneberg and was renamed to Chemische Fabrik Kalk GmbH in 1892. At times the company was the second-largest German producer of soda ash and was, with almost 2400 employees, one of the largest employers in Cologne. For decades the chimneys and the water tower of the factory dominated the skyline of Cologne-Kalk.
Commodity chemicals are a group of chemicals that are made on a very large scale to satisfy global markets. The average prices of commodity chemicals are regularly published in the chemical trade magazines and web sites such as Chemical Week and ICIS. There have been several studies of the scale and complexity of this market for example in the USA.
Salter Science was a brand of science kits sold by Thomas Salter Ltd., a Scotland-based company which manufactured toys and science activity kits for children. Kits included activities with electricity, microscopy, magnetism and crystal gardens, but the company is probably best known for their chemistry sets. The company also produced other items such as an "Adventure Kit" consisting of a water bottle, compass, toy binoculars and a real working camera. Some toys were related to TV series, such as the 'KOJAK' ACTION PACK and the PROFESSIONALS CRIMEBUSTER KIT. It also produced crafts plaster moulding sets Frog & Owl.
Virginia Dolores Hogan was an American chemist, specializing in pyrotechnics, and "the only woman research chemist at Picatinny Arsenal," a large United States Army installation in New Jersey.
