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The Science Snackbook edited by Paul Doherty and Don Rathjen, Exploratorium,
pp 240, $24.95

Designers and technicians in interactive science centres have enough
trouble building exhibits that are safe, effective and sufficiently durable
to withstand endless investigation by enthusiastic hands. How much harder
it must be for a group of enthused ten year olds and their teacher trying
to repeat the activities in class when they return from their visit.

The Exploratorium in San Francisco – the inspiration of dozens of centres
around the world – has long recognised the problems of exhibit builders,
and publishes a three-volume series of ‘cookbooks’, featuring recipes for
the duplication of key Exploratorium exhibits. They have now responded to
the needs of teachers by publishing The Science Snackbook which describes
how to make low-tech, low budget versions of exhibits for the classroom.

The snackbook has been written by science teachers who have chosen more
than a hundred designs for simple exhibits. Each recipe is exceptionally
clearly presented and includes a list of materials, instructions for assembly
and use and photographs of the finished ‘snack’.

Each has a substantial section on background science (‘What’s Going
On?’), and a column of supplementary information simply labelled ‘Etc’.
A labelling system of icons (refreshingly free from National Curriculum
overtones) identifies all the principle phenomena shown: chemistry, colour,
polarisation and so on.

Users are free to duplicate pages, which can be removed and are pre-punched
to fit a three-ring binder. The pages, however, are not A4.

One of the major achievements of the book is that it has been designed
and successfully tested with all age groups in mind. The intention is that
all materials should be ‘no further away than the local hardware or stationery
store’, but be aware that your shopping list may include a vacuum pump.
A few recipes call for a microammeter or enamelled wire likely to be found
only in secondary school labs, but most need little more than drawing pins,
paper and a little thoughtful improvisation. For most of the snacks practical
enthusiasm counts for far more than technical skill and experience.

Not surprisingly, the snack-book effectively mirrors the Exploratorium’s
collection of exhibits. Phenomena related to colour, polarisation, refraction
and reflection are well represented as are mechanics, magnetism and electricity.
There are also some simple and effective demonstrations of resonance. No
fewer than 26 snacks illustrate aspects of human perception, including the
delightful ‘Jacques Cousteau in Seashells’. Many science centre favourites
on the Bernoulli effect, giant gyroscopes and the conservation of angular
momentum are included, and the snacks on mirrors include an inevitably controversial
explanation on left-right ‘reversal’. There is predictably little on chemistry
and the life sciences.

It must be said that for the British user the language and content is
unmistakably American, and the book is the product of a different educational
climate. The terminology is in places curious (‘magnetic suction’?), but
it will introduce you to the Bronx cheer, cow magnets and hardware disease.

The Exploratorium describes itself as an artfully conceived science
centre and is officially called ‘San Francisco’s Museum of Art, Science
and Human Perception’. Its great strength is that art and science are never
far apart within the exhibition, and the boundaries between the two can
be hard to find. This spirit has been captured in the snackbook to great
effect, and retains a humour and humanity which make it tremendously readable,
and always accessible.

The science centre movement is not without its critics, and if you don’t
like science centres you may not like The Science Snackbook. It is not an
introduction to rigorous laboratory technique, nor does it offer a coherent
approach to practical physics. What it does offer is an encouragement to
lively minds and curious hands to do and appreciate some science.

Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon Street, San Francisco, CA 94123.

Neal Marriott worked at the Exploratory Science Centre in Bristol for
four years before joining the Institute of Physics Publishing.