Discovery

A Gift of Science

We suggest you look beyond socks, ties and perfumes for the perfect Christmas gift...

Vicki Hyde

What do you want for Christmas? I'd like a nice large telescope, or a nature cruise around Fiordland, or a good geological guide to the South Island, or a large polished ammonite, or a life-size inflatable orca (hmm, maybe not the latter if I'm being practical).

Any of those appeal to you? Try highlighting what you'd like and leave this lying around for a hint to your nearest and dearest.

If you're in the position of racking your brains for a present, check out specialist shops such as the Nature's Window or Hocus Pocus stores, education resource outlets or the shops run in conjunction with hands-on science centres and astronomical observatories. There are all sorts of interesting goodies out there.

In Christchurch's Nature Discoveries, they've found the strangely compelling Hoverman Sphere ($9.95) to be very popular. These plastic contraptions fold and expand from ball to star shape and back again. Great for the executive desk or toybox alike.

Pocket Scientist and Test Tube Kits ($12.95-$6.95) make good stocking fillers, though I suspect that the "make a volcano" or "grow crystals" sets may be the best choice for Boxing Day activities rather than the "fart gas" kit. (The latter is very popular with 12-year-old boys, we're told...)

At Science Alive!, the Magic Rock kit ($19.50) lets you grow stalagmites in double-quick time -- 20 minutes instead of 2,000 years. The US ChemLab 500 set ($75.95) goes a bit further, with 500 teacher-designed experiments suitable for ages 9 and over. It's got childproof locks on the containers, but if you'd rather steer away from any possibility of harm, take a look at the Alien Gyroscope ($11.95). It's totally enclosed so even the most dextrously-challenged won't catch their fingers as it spins and flashes.

Given this year's enthusiasm for looking to the past, why not settle down with a book that recognises where our science has come from? The ever-excellent Steve Jones updates Darwin's Origin of Species in Almost Like a Whale (Random House/Transworld, 1999; $65). It seems ironic that, in some respects, there is more organised opposition to evolutionary theory these days than there was in Darwin's time. Jones's update is a timely reminder of just how much has been learned in the past century.

If you want a more local flavour, Volume Four of The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Auckland University Press/Dept Internal Affairs, 1998; $79.95) spans what some might see as the halcyon years of New Zealand science of 1921-1940, when the efforts of people like Geoffrey Peren and William Dry left their names permanently on our landscape.

They weren't all sheep scientists -- maverick astronomer Algernon Gifford was active at this time. Supplement his extract with a donation to the Gifford Observatory Trust (Box 16-155, Wellington). Fifty dollars gets an inscription of your choice on posts flanking the walk up to the Observatory, currently under restoration in Wellington.

If the spirit of giving is one you like to honour at Christmas, how about the Donate a Tree programme for the Yellow-Eyed Penguin Trust? (Box 5409, Dunedin; Phone 03-479-0011) You can sponsor 10 trees for $30 and this will give much-needed shade to a penguin nest.

Or have the family adopt an orca for $45 (Box 1233, Whangarei). You won't get an inflatable one, but you will get a photo of your own orca, a map of sightings, newsletters, and the knowledge that you are helping support orca research and conservation in New Zealand waters.

Now that's a gift that's bound to make you feel good!

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.
Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.