How to Quickly Achieve Scientific Literacy
Among our objectives here at Everything Progressive is provision of tools for acquiring a literacy centering upon the key elements of rationalism: science, mathematics, and philosophy. Two of our founding fathers would have been especially sympathetic to this project: Thomas Jefferson, who was a keen naturalist, and Benjamin Franklin who, among many other things, famously showed that lightning is one form of electricity. (The author has made a kind of pilgramage both to Philadelphia, ground zero for Franklin's activities, and to Monticello, Jefferson's remarkable home where he conducted careful agricultural experiments. Both experiences are highly commended to our readers.)
Why Become Scientifically Literate?
Franklin was, of course, the very personification of the citizen-scientist, and had a kind of workshop in his own residence for carrying out his many experiments. If for no other reason than to satisfy one's own curiosity, it's our belief that everyone should be a lifelong learner - and that laboratories aren't just for universities. Everyone who has a home with an extra room can construct their own laboratory for scientific and technological experimentation - and everyone should. This can then serve as the launchpad for achieving the best kind of scientific literacy. Such a laboratory can take many forms: one of the best would be oriented toward being a kind of playground for children. But whatever form it takes, the literacy it can help inspire is essential today: we are literally surrounded by the products of science.
Types of Laboratory
But empty-nesters can also pursue their own scientific interests with any one of several kinds of home laboratory. The two main kinds include one oriented to some particular discipline of the greatest interest, perhaps even conducting actual research; or one that enables the citizen scientist to replicate some of the fundamental discoveries central to one or more of the sciences. There is something peculiarly satisfying about doing this sort of thing in a home lab. It literally brings the sciences home - in both senses of this phrase.
Building the Lab
What's needed first is the physical infrastructure of the lab. For those with the funds, professional lab furniture is available from Labs USA. Items hard to make for oneself, such as fume hoods, may be found here. (As with nearly anything else, second-hand equipment may usually be found at Ebay.) However, to truly customize your lab to the facilities available, and to save a little money, construction of the lab may be preferable. An unlikely-seeming resource for this purpose is Garage Solutions from Taunton Press. This book lays out the materials and procedures for creating a hackerspace from soup to nuts, whether in a garage or anywhere else. Some considerations to keep in mind as you're building your lab are available at this link.
Of course, many individuals will have neither the money nor the room for their own home lab. If that's the case, one contemporary solution is the creation of a hacker space. The further advantage of a hacker space, even for those with a home lab, is participation in a community of shared expertise. Some equipment is also sufficiently expensive that sharing the financial burden in acquiring it may be the only realistic option.
Wonderful resources for both kinds of laboratory have been on offer for some time now from Maker Media (which is now recovering after financial difficulties in 2019).
Scientific Equipment
Science equipment for your lab may be had from companies such as Fisher Scientific. Fisher provides a great overview of the sorts of equipment available here. The high cost of some scientific equipment and supplies has led, especially in Africa, to the development of resources for constructing equipment inexpensively, utilizing open-source plans. In late 2020 Nature magazine devoted an issue to this topic.
There they identified sourcing for inexpensive enzymes. Open source lab materials can be found here. Neuroscience resources are also available. Powerful microscopes can now be printed with 3-D printers. Genes are available from Stanford. And Cambridge has provided plans for a contemporary biology laboratory. Finally, two journals are full of information relating to open-source scientific equipment: HardwareX and the Journal of Open Hardware.
Acquiring Basic Scientific Knowledge
Now that you've got a lab, and have equipped it, how do you best further develop your scientific understanding?
There's considerable value in first acquiring a broad overview of any subject one happens to be interested in before digging more deeply. To that end, we recommend that all readers acquire Dorling Kindersley's Science!, produced in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution. While nominally written for children, this volume provides a concise and visually engaging overview of all of the sciences that adults will find equally fascinating.
Following this book, one logical place to continue would be with the books in our Physics resource, or else with the materials in our Mathematics resource, as both will be highly valuable for pursuing all further scientific (and engineering) topics.
However, to actually get underway, a terrific place to begin would be with conducting experiments that further advance one's understanding.
Doing Experiments
A book that combines the home construction of a full range of scientific equipment with experiments that can be done using that equipment is The Annotated Build-It-Yourself Science Laboratory, by Raymond E. Barrett and Windell H. Oskay. The annotations supplied by Oskay are valuable, because many things have changed since the book was originally published, and they also supply many safety caveats that are essential to observe. The web site for the book provides errata, sources for home lab supplies, and other home science resources. The more than 1,600 experiments will do much to build upon the foundation acquired by the student to this point.
The citizen science movement provides many exciting opportunities for doing meaningful science right at home or in your local community. Resources for this are as follows:
Zooniverse: https://zooniverse.org/
Citizen Science (US Gov't): https://www.citizenscience.gov/#
Citizen Science (Public Organization): https://www.citizenscience.org
Experiments for children may be found in 101 Great Science Experiments, by Neil Ardley, and a nice set of "Maker Lab" books for young teens is also available.
Additional Skills and Resources
Make magazine, like Popular Science, doesn't draw a hard line between science and technology. We don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
If you're going to be building a lab, or scientific equipment, preliminary mastery, or at least awareness, of basic technological or "maker" skills will be highly valuable. Popular Science comes to the rescue here with The Big Book of Maker Skills, by Chris Hackett. This compendium doesn't dig too deeply into any of its many topics, but it does supply a nicely illustrated overview of the whole gamut of contemporary technologies - and tools for working with them hands-on.
For the highest-level resources in each area of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), go to our STEM resource.
In addition to the foregoing, readers can help support science by joining the Union of Concerned Scientists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In-Depth Resources (including many additional experiments)
More in-depth science topics at Everything Progressive currently include:
Chemistry (under development)
(Note: the editor of EP is a certified science teacher.)
The Editor / Everything Progressive
