Toys ‘R’ Science
Issy Murray discusses the Christmas toy that inspired her to become a scientist.
Picture the scene: it’s Christmas 2010 and I am painstakingly unwrapping each corner of my Christmas present. As I carefully tear back the Christmas paper, to my nerdy delight what is revealed was the best present I could have asked for. What Father Christmas had cleverly delivered to me (knowing science was my favourite subject at school) was a kids microscope, complete with an array of pre-prepared slides.
What Father Christmas had cleverly delivered to me (knowing science was my favourite subject at school) was a kids microscope, complete with an array of pre-prepared slides.
I spent the remainder of Christmas day, and most of the subsequent months, studying each slide meticulously and doing my own diagrams to match them. The microscope fast became my most prized possession, not only because it gave me a view of the world I had never been able to see before, but because with both my parents being scientists, it gave me an excuse to nag them with scientific question after scientific question.
My kids microscope therefore inspired my scientific curiosity, and is no doubt one of the reasons that I still carry this curiosity to this day.
