In the event you like historical past, it’s best to take a look at the web site for “Views on Historical past,” the newsmagazine of the American Historic Affiliation. Extra particularly, I have been having fun with a recurring column referred to as “Every thing Has a Historical past,” which gives the histories of all the things from 20-sided die to elevator sounds to Massive Mouth Billy Bass, and way more.
The most recent entry, written by Sherri Sheu, the Haas Curatorial Fellow on the Science Historical past Institute in Philadelphia and an at-large member of the AHA Council, is concerning the “Johnny Horizon Environmental Check Package,” a toy for budding environmental scientists manufactured by Parker Brothers in 1971 that capitalized on the rising curiosity in environmentalism and ecology that was ignited after the primary Earth Day in April, 1970.
Sheu describes the package:
The package contained 10 experiments for youngsters to check the air and water of their neighborhoods. Kids might take samples from their native waterways and tradition a petri dish to check for fecal coliform contamination or dip pH strips to check acidity and alkalinity. They might take a look at smoke density within the air or use sticky paper to search out and depend air particles. Within the spirit of the scientific technique, the experiments could possibly be repeated a number of occasions, with refill kits additionally out there for buy.
“Johnny Horizon”—which Sheu describes as a “rugged outdoorsman determine”—was a mascot created in 1968 by the Bureau of Land Administration to advertise environmental schooling by a collection of anti-litter public service bulletins by the Seventies. Sheu additionally explains that whereas the kits taught actual science and offered some sense of company to youth in search of to handle environmental points of their neighborhoods, the kits centered on particular person accountability—do not litter, keep away from pesticides, and so on.—and did not handle a lot when it comes to extra structural options, which, in fact, is an ongoing downside:
But, for all its testing capabilities, the package couldn’t present many options. In an inventory of solutions, the handbook really helpful studying extra books on the atmosphere and instructed customers to chorus from littering, keep away from pesticides, cut back plastic use, and journey by mass transit. Solely within the final advice did the booklet counsel reporting take a look at outcomes to the EPA or native authorities. The package provided a approach to observe the atmosphere, to not resolve environmental issues or have interaction in political motion.
It’s maybe an excessive amount of to ask for an answer to wide-scale environmental air pollution from a toy. Nevertheless, the constraints of the Johnny Horizon Environmental Check Package illuminate a long-standing pressure of the environmental age: What can on a regular basis residents do in mild of the necessity for international systemic change? A half century after the package’s look, many people nonetheless really feel that we are attempting to confront local weather change with solely youngsters’s toys.