Not many people look at a box of lemon Jell-O and think "cytoplasm." Then again, not many people think like kids' science book author Janice VanCleave. Give this kitchen dynamo a package of gelatin, a plastic sandwich bag, and one plump grape, and before you can say "microorganism," she's whipped up a model of a cell. Household products too are curiously inspiring: With a splash of food coloring and a teaspoon each of liquid starch and glue, VanCleave concocts an elastic, Silly Putty-esque glob technically known as a "non-Newtonian fluid."
"I call it the Slime," she says.
As you may have gathered, Janice VanCleave has one unusual perspective. Everywhere she goes, everything she sees, reminds her of science. And while no one suggests you actually eat her Jell-O cell, her singular outlook just may spark your child's passion for the scientific world.
An award-winning former science teacher, VanCleave has written 47--you read right, 47--best-selling books of kids' experiments, all of which use only easy-to-find items and ingredients. It's an approach that's part Martha Stewart, part Mr. Wizard. Raid your cupboards, round up an Alka-Seltzer tablet or two, and in VanCleave's estimation, you have all you need for hours of kitchen-table science.
At 60, with oversize red glasses and a honey-glazed drawl, this Texas native is anything but pedantic. Really, how could she be, tugging on a gummy worm to illustrate elasticity? Hands-on learning is clearly her style--lots of cutting and drawing, stretching and kneading, measuring and mixing. The result is something we physics-phobes, frankly, find hard to believe: VanCleave makes science fun.
Just take a look at her books. Crammed with experiments for all ages, they include such kid-tempting titles as JANICE VANCLEAVE'S 202 OOZING, BUBBLING, DRIPPING, AND BOUNCING EXPERIMENTS and JANICE VANCLEAVE'S 203 ICY, FREEZING, FROSTY, COOL & WILD EXPERIMENTS, to name but two. Here ice cubes, modeling clay, magnets, paper towel tubes, coffee filters, even puffed rice cereal possess infinite "Aha! Effect" potential, in VanCleave's words. The experiments too are irresistibly labeled. Who wouldn't love chemistry when it's broken down into "Sinkers," "Springy," "Meltdown," "Bubbler," "Expando," and "Brown Banana"?
Fun is the point, and no-fuss is the approach. "If you have to send off for equipment, you're not likely to do the experiment by the time it gets there," VanCleave says. "I want kids to be able to do it now."
As simple as VanCleave's experiments are (most require no more than five common items), she runs into some unexpected resistance. Specifically, she must overcome the stubborn, widespread belief that science is hard and boring and scary, a notion that many of us who yawned over the periodic table or cowered before the flame of a Bunsen burner have perpetuated--and possibly passed on to the next generation.
"I think oftentimes children have been taught that they've inherited an inability to learn science," says VanCleave. However, a little attitude adjustment on grown-ups' part, she says, is all that's needed to produce big changes. This she's seen firsthand. "After just one week of school, Lacey, my 11-year-old granddaughter, said, 'I hate to tell you this, but I don't like science,'" says VanCleave. "She was quick to add, 'But I like the stuff you do.'"
