[bigohms]

I remember collecting and playing with mercury from thermometers (here in the US), probably why I can't recite PI to anything more than 6 places :)

[msisk6]

Back in the early 80s at high school in chemistry class we had a beaker full of mercury we'd float nuts and bolts on. The teacher would just let us grab 'em out of the beaker with our bare hands.

Crazy stuff -- I'm still not sure how I feel about it. We've gone too far in the name of safety in some ways but in others it's needed as we learn more about the risk factors.

Regardless, my kids experience in school is profoundly different than mine -- very little hands on stuff or experiments. Hell, just going on a school field trip with your own kids requires a criminal background check...

[danneu]

I graduated highschool in 2007 and science class was devoid of experimentation. I remember there being a bunch of hype months in advance for a day where we just watched our teacher do something with a bunsen burner. I don't remember what she did with it, but it was undoubtedly within the realm of making food-dyed water boil over a flame.

[dquigley]

Maybe most high schools have gotten that way, but I had a very different experience. Made some chemical mixture in Chemistry that would go up in a puff if it was bumped. In my high school engineering classes, we stripped the motor out of a CNC router, attached a custom built head on it and then connected that router's computer to another control box we used to control two robotic arms, a conveyor belt, and a couple of control valves for water.

There are still a few good high schools left at least.

[ams6110]

We used to steal stuff from the chemistry storeroom and make bombs. Today that'd get you a visit from the DHS and probably onto some kind of terror watch list.

[DennisP]

I did that too, and used to worry about it. Then I saw a video of a guy messing around with a giant tub of liquid mercury, talking about how it's not all that dangerous in that form.

[pavel_lishin]

Doesn't it evaporate fairly easily, though? And can't it also be absorbed through the skin?

[cynwoody]

But did you ever do a shoe-store fluoroscope?