Lynne McElhaney's parents didn't let her watch "Star Trek" when it appeared in the '60s because it was too far out. All those people talking into flip-open communicators.
Now it's the '90s. People are talking into flip-open communicators and McElhaney teaches science at LeFlore High School in Mobile, Ala. Despite her upbringing, she encourages her students to watch science shows on television.The history of children's science shows can be traced back to the venerable Mr. Wizard, Don Herbert. He got his start on the half-hour weekly show "Watch Mr. Wizard" on NBC in 1951.
Long after that humble beginning, science shows are experiencing an explosion in popularity as kids discover that science rules, and networks discover the programs atone, in part, for the Saturday morning cartoons that parents love to hate.
Even "Mr. Wizard" is still around, having moved to Nickelodeon and been renamed "Teacher to Teacher With Mr. Wizard." Check local listings for day and time that this and other science shows air.
Science shows also found a home on PBS, sometimes the only oasis in a desert of vapid children's programming. PBS recently snared "Bill Nye, The Science Guy" from syndicated television. In his first season, Nye won a Parents' Choice Award and a National Education Association Award.
A scientist who could have been a standup comedian, Nye has a go-anywhere, do-anything mentality that sells well with youngsters. He also has a twisted sense of humor that keeps him alive with the adults. Last year, he chased a solar eclipse to Los Angeles for the episode titled "Sun" and tried surfing for an oceanography episode.
Another PBS science program, "Newton's Apple," is now in its 12th season.
"Newton's Apple" is aimed at teenagers. This season promises highlights on "what rubbed out the dinosaurs," and "science of the rich and famous," which includes a segment on the Harlem Globetrotters and their theories on gyroscopic inertia.
The Learning Channel cable network will offer several science-related shows.
Science teacher McElhaney is a "Beakman's World" fan and sometimes tapes the show to provide her students with ideas for science projects at LeFlore.
"Not all the kids do Nobel Prize-winning research after watching the shows, but the projects get them in the habit of proving or disproving something and thinking about ways to apply principles to research," she said.
Her students enjoy watching the shows because television is a medium they are familiar with, she said.
"We have to face it. We're dealing with the MTV Generation," she said. "Kids relate more and more to visuals, and it helps them make associations with general concepts that they already know."'