# Iron Science Teacher

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iron-science-teacher/434008>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [January 18, 2008, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iron-science-teacher/434008 "2008-01-18T13:21:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iron-science-teacher/434008/1 "2008-01-18T13:21:25Z")

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I was looking something else up, and stumbled across this.

Pepper Mill is a big fan of **Iron Chef America**. No, that’s putting it too miildly. She’s _obsessed_ with this show. Even that seems too tame a description of her love for this show. So I get to see a lot of it, and it has its fascination for me, too. I think it’s goofy the way they do everything so hyperdramatically, with the shifting spoked lighting, the hovering cameras (If I was a contestant chef – a ludicrous suggestion already – some cameraman would lose an eye and probably some teeth before they finished the first half hour), the pompous posing announcer with his staged reveals:

“Today’s Secret Ingredient is …BROCCOLI!”

Apparently the San Francisco Exploratorium (and some other places, since the SFX started doing this) have done something similar called “Iron Science Teacher”, where the idea is to give a roomful of science presenters some random “secret ingredient” (“Today’s secret ingredient is … POPSICLE STICKS!”) and see what they can come up with in the way of interesting and engaging science demonstrations using it.

[http://www.exploratorium.edu/iron\_science/index.php](http://www.exploratorium.edu/iron_science/index.php)

THIS, to me, looks like a lotta fun. More fun than coming up with a ragout or some meat-based mousse on the fly. But that’s probably just my prejudices showing through.

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**Author:** ![ChiefScott](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@ChiefScott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChiefScott)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iron-science-teacher/434008/2 "2008-01-18T13:43:32Z")

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\<The Chairman\> Allez, experiment! \</TC\>

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**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iron-science-teacher/434008/3 "2008-01-18T22:41:37Z")

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Today’s Secret Ingredient is …ANTIMATTER!