Michael Faraday, the noted English physicist and chemist, lived from 1791 to 1867. He was a gifted lecturer who began giving his Christmas Lectures for children and their families at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in the 1840s. Faraday loved simplicity, and he had a strong sense of the dramatic. His audience entered wholeheartedly into the world of science with his guidance. His ideas were considered very unorthodox at that time, and children, who had not yet adopted conventional ideas, would react enthusiastically to the ones he presented. Throughout the 19 annual Christmas Lectures that he presented, Faraday did all he could to urge his listeners to see and judge for themselves, to experiment, and to question nature directly whenever anyone discovered something out of the ordinary. In December 1970, my first year on the faculty, I gave the first Wisconsin Christmas Lecture to students in my first-year chemistry class. Colorful displays and exciting chemical transformations were presented. Word spread that the Christmas Lecture was a fun event and the following year the lecture hall overflowed with students and their friends. In 1972 the Christmas Lecture was given in two evening sessions open to the public. In 1973 Wisconsin Public Television offered to videotape the program for broadcast during the week of Christmas. Thus began an uninterrupted collaboration between the Chemistry Department and UW-Extension to bring science to audiences throughout Wisconsin and on PBS stations. Since then, versions of the show have played to packed houses elsewhere across the country and around the world. The goal of the Christmas Lecture has remained the same over the years and around the globe: connectivity with the audience. The ultimate purpose is to trigger cerebral and emotional engagement to heighten the audience’s joy in learning.

Once upon a Christmas cheery in the lab of Shakhashiri: Public engagement for 47 years and counting...

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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