People send me stuff. My friend Rick was in Eugene, OR recently for a Ducks game and saw this in a store on the shelf. Of course, he had to snap photos and send me an email to tell me all about it.
I got a chuckle out of the “experiment with a model atmosphere” part. Here’s the reverse side:
I did some research to find out who makes this and how it is marketed. It turns out to be from a company called Thames and Kosmos:
| Earth’s Climate & Climate Change | ||
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Global warming — the steady increase in Earth’s air and ocean temperatures since the mid-20th century — is one of the most discussed and studied topics in the scientific community today. This kit introduces you to Earth’s climate and the issue of global warming with 23 hands-on experiments. Since Earth’s formation, its climate has been constantly changing. Periods of warmer climate have alternated with ice ages. These changes happen over long periods of time. During the last few decades, a warming in the climate has been observed everywhere on Earth. While some warming may be due to natural phenomena, scientists predominantly attribute global warming to human influence. This kit gives you the basic knowledge you need to understand the climate, why it changes, and how our actions affect it. First, learn about Earth’s climate system, weather, and atmosphere by conducting experiments with a model Earth and atmosphere. Explore the hydrological cycle to learn about humidity, clouds, and precipitation. Model Earth’s heat reservoirs, thermals, global and local winds, and ocean currents. Next, learn how human activity influences the climate with experiments involving carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect. Measure the effects that increased levels of carbon dioxide have on the temperature of air. Learn about how warming affects the Gulf stream. Finally, investigate the potential consequences of global warming on humans, ecosystems, and the world’s economies. Learn what we can do to protect the climate. The full-color, 48-page manual guides your experiments. Ages 10 and up. |
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Intrigued, I decided to have a look at the online manual available here (PDF) The table of contents is telling:
I really wanted to see how they do experiment 21, suspecting they do some variation on Al Gore’s fabricated CO2 experiment, given the included equipment I see. Unfortunately they don’t give a complete manual online lest some enterprising kid decides to just skip buying this and do it at home.
I suspect that experiment 20 fills the plastic globe with CO2, and then they do something like what they show in experiment 8-10:
As we know (but Al Gore still refuses to acknowledge) an experiment like that can’t possibly work they way the Earth’s atmosphere does, which is why they had to fake the results in post-production.
The last item in the manual table of contents (page 46) reveals that this science kit has advocacy as a conclusion:
Economic Consequences 46
How Can We Protect The Climate?
Let’s hope some parents follow this early advice and teach their children to be skeptical detectives rather than followers:
Encourage your child to be a good detective and look closely to see the results of the experiments.
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There should be an addendum on how to write a report without referencing raw data or methodology, and on circumventing FOIA requests.
Does the “atmosphere” of that kit expand up to 130% of its original size like the real one does?
“I did some research to find out who makes this and how it is marketed.”
It’s written right on the side of the box in big bold letters! 🙂
Maybe Anthony can get the kit and feature the experiments on WUWT.
Lol, good one. The hubris is just funny.
WARNING:Choking Hazard!
Yep – I found this difficult to swallow also………
MtK
I hope it teaches them how to hide the data.
Experiment 25: making your Nobel Peace Prize certificate.
Recommended Products:
People who bought this product also bought: Lil Lawyer Junior Litigation Kit.
On little experiment to understand the atmosphere is to light a match, hold it upright with the flame at the top, then see how close you can get your fingers to the side of the match flame. After that, see how close you can get your finger to the top of the match flame.
That will give you a good idea what drives heat transfer in the atmosphere.
Kids and warmists…,remember, your fingers might get hot … ask mummy’s permission first.
Right up there with Richard Gage and his Card Board Box WTC.
The climate modellers’ problems have been solved with a kit. Clounds are now a doddle.
Typo:
…………….Clouds are now a doddle.
here – in germany – years back we had a wonderful sketched and tv-broadcasted satire by a comedian named “Loriot” about a nice kids toy realising a construction kit for a nuclear plant. Great – it made a christmas day – of course – in TV only.
In times of tabloid climate science the satire turns to truth… dear god what have i done to face this ongoing madness…?
Obviously it also comes with a supercomputer, that gets the weather forecast wrong because the models the programming is based on has the same flaws as this kit!
That reminds me, when I was a child I was interested in chemistry and bought chemicals to make rockets and explosives and other interesting things. When my children were about 10 I bought them chemistry sets, so they could enjoy the bangs, flames and smoke like I did a generation previously. What de we get? Safety goggles, polythene aprons warnings and experiments that would not interest anyone, even if their life depended upon it! My daughters have both got BA’s and have not the slightest interest in science, neither has my son who is at college doing Aviation, Travel and Tourism!
I was however interested to see that things have gone full circle with this kit; now we have Armageddon in a box! Is there a polythene apron and safety glasses in the box though? Or does the kit bear the legend “WARNING: THIS KIT MAY RELEASE THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
Experiment 25: Ocean Acidification: Making Ocean Water Acidic with CO2
Step 1: Obtain HCl or H2SO4 ……..
speaking of funny!
3 Nov: The Economist: Our American endorsement
America could do better than Barack Obama; sadly, Mitt Romney does not fit the bill
Mr Obama came into office promising to end “our chronic avoidance of tough decisions” on reforming its finances—and then retreated fast, as he did on climate change and on immigration…
This newspaper yearns for the more tolerant conservatism of Ronald Reagan, where “small government” meant keeping the state out of people’s bedrooms as well as out of their businesses. Mr Romney shows no sign of wanting to revive it…
And for all his shortcomings, Mr Obama has dragged America’s economy back from the brink of disaster, and has made a decent fist of foreign policy. So this newspaper would stick with the devil it knows, and re-elect him.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21565623-america-could-do-better-barack-obama-sadly-mitt-romney-does-not-fit-bill-which-one
Wikipedia: The Economist
“The publication belongs to The Economist Group, half of which owned by Pearson PLC via Financial Times. A group of independent shareholders, including many members of the staff and the Rothschild banking family of England, owns the rest.”…
It targets highly educated readers and claims an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers…
Editorial anonymity
Articles often take a definite editorial stance and almost never carry a byline…
The editors say this is necessary because “collective voice and personality matter more than the identities of individual journalists” and reflects “a collaborative effort…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist
hansen with his dice: if u r PERCEPTIVE, u will have come to recognise the truth of CAGW a decade or more ago, and will understand the need to put an ever-rising price on carbon dioxide:
VIDEO: 16 Aug: James Hansen on climate change
Hot, dry or flooded
HOT summers, wildfires and drought are anomalies no longer. They are the visible products of climate change, and more can be expected, says James Hansen. One solution may appeal to conservatives…
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/08/james-hansen-climate-change
Anthony doing the experiments would be good material for the anti anti-dirty weather webcast.
Do the instructions tell the kids that if they can’t find an incandescent bulb that they should just model the results?
“Experiment to see how carbon dioxide levels affect temperature” is in the Climate & Weather” kit as well. Some of the other kits would have been of interest to me if they had been available when I was in the target age-group. Hopefully there are still kids with the required attention span?
I moved on from the home chemistry set to mixing sodium chlorate and sugar. Much more spectacular results. (Don’t try this at home. It is a wonder that I am still in one piece.)
I hope there’s enough CO2 in that kit to run the atmosphere in that little “globe” up from 400 ppm to 800 or 1600 ppm (a doubling or two). Doesn’t look like the box is big enough (/sarc). Seriously, I hope there are instructions to do the calculation, at least. Or do we just fill the “globe” up with CO2… like we’re “filling the atmosphere up with CO2″… Sigh!
Proxy data sold separately.
Simply silly. But then again, if you simply want to follow the doctrine, I am sure this kit WILL give the results required! I confess I would feel very tempted to deliver a smack in the mouth to any parent buying this for their kids – I like the thought of kids experimenting with science, but not this – it’s just another way of perpetuating the alarmism through to our kids……..
Slightly OT, but I have noticed the propensity for silly stories of late (I know it’s not Anthonys fault! and I wouldn’t dream of telling Anthony how to run his show as I’ve enjoyed it in its current format for the last few years) but I was wondering if the home page for WUWT should maybe be slightly more ‘reserved’ for the proper subjects? That way when newcomers ‘look in’ they don’t see all the silliness (admittedly, created by the created by the alarmists and silly media) and think we are simply a bunch of inane deriding baboons! Perhaps the blog could be divided into three sections; Serious Science (Home page?), and a Semi-Silly and Downright Stupid section. The Climate Fail section is already there LOL. Of course, some of the stupid ones really DO need completely deriding and probably deserve the front page – but others perhaps just clutter it, don’t you think?
IMHO, it’s nice to comment on some of the really crazy alarmist stories, but because the stories themselves are silly, our comments themselves are going to be quite silly, But it would be nice to have the serious stuff kept more ‘aloof’ – if thats the right word! I know I am perhaps seeming to be picky, but it is a genuine comment/thought, and certainly not intended to offend.
regards
Kev
Reg Nelson says:
November 2, 2012 at 1:31 pm
thats actually very funny!
Next it will be a DIY tree and ice coring kit!
So, this is how Penn State makes tenure decisions. Explains a lot.
I received this toy as a 2011 Christmas gift from Lisa Randall, particle physicist and my ex-colleague at Harvard:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/01/thames-kosmos-global-warming.html?m=1
It’s fun. I constructed my Earth and did various things with it. There’s also a thermometer, not really useful to measure fever, however. Perhaps skeptics should do something like that as well.