Taken from Albuquerque Journal:
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Long before Bill Nye the Science Guy ...
... and long before Carl Sagan there was Don Herbert, early television's "Mr. Wizard," whose Saturday morning program in the `50s and early `60s arguably did more to foster young people's interest in science than Sputnik.
Herbert, whose "Watch Mr. Wizard" program began in 1951 and ran for 14 years, died Tuesday at his California home of multiple myeloma, according to an obituary in today's Los Angeles Times.
The Times story pointed out that Herbert used basic experiments to teach scientific principles to his live TV audience using a boy or girl as an in-studio guest to help him with those experiments.
Herbert told The New York Times in a 2004 interview that he would instill a sense of wonder in the most elementary scientific experiments, saying he "would perform the trick, as it were, to hook the kids, and then explain the science later," the Times reported.
The successful, award-winning method was satirized by the legendary radio (and briefly, TV) comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding in a bit where none of the experiments ever worked or would end in explosive disaster and the clueless, hyperenthusiastic kid next door would exclaim, "Gosh all get-out, Mr. Science ..."
The Times quotes National Science Foundation official George Tressel, who said in 1989: "Over the years, Don has been personally responsible for more people going into the sciences than any other single person in this country."
*****************************
Long before Bill Nye the Science Guy ...
... and long before Carl Sagan there was Don Herbert, early television's "Mr. Wizard," whose Saturday morning program in the `50s and early `60s arguably did more to foster young people's interest in science than Sputnik.
Herbert, whose "Watch Mr. Wizard" program began in 1951 and ran for 14 years, died Tuesday at his California home of multiple myeloma, according to an obituary in today's Los Angeles Times.
The Times story pointed out that Herbert used basic experiments to teach scientific principles to his live TV audience using a boy or girl as an in-studio guest to help him with those experiments.
Herbert told The New York Times in a 2004 interview that he would instill a sense of wonder in the most elementary scientific experiments, saying he "would perform the trick, as it were, to hook the kids, and then explain the science later," the Times reported.
The successful, award-winning method was satirized by the legendary radio (and briefly, TV) comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding in a bit where none of the experiments ever worked or would end in explosive disaster and the clueless, hyperenthusiastic kid next door would exclaim, "Gosh all get-out, Mr. Science ..."
The Times quotes National Science Foundation official George Tressel, who said in 1989: "Over the years, Don has been personally responsible for more people going into the sciences than any other single person in this country."