BeerBorg

Teaching kids how a yeast works is not a bad thing, but teaching how to brew beer is out of line, IMHO.

I understand both sides and think they should give kids a choice....beer or ethanol and get their parents permission.

The only reason they are 'underage' is because they are in the
USA. I believe it is totally reasonable. An analogy: If you grow up in a city with a truck assembly plant, you have a class that touches on manufacturing trucks and take a plant tour.

It's called learning. I think it's interesting that the story is shown on Fox, a network that seeks to hit people's hot buttons and get outrage flowing.

That mother should consider volunteering in the school and teaching the dangers of alcoholism to the students based on her family's real life experiences, that would be invaluable.

You could teach the same lesson using bread as a final product. You won't see the same yeast feast as in beer, but the physical rise is there. I feel you could use that for yeast and something else that ferments, that doesn't produce alcohol...

Just alternatives to that lesson. Without going deep in thought before Sunday coffee kicks in, I'm not sure I see a problem as was.... There are always exceptions....

First I am going to go on a rant about age in our society. We have determined that someone under 18 isn't responsible for their actions but someone over 18 is. Yet you have to wait until 21 for alcohol because apparently as an adult you can't make that decision yet. But then people want these set ages redefined all the time. It's OK to drink alcohol during communion. People are clamoring for minors to be tried as an adult in court because they knew what they were doing. If we are going to pick a an age let's not use that set age when we want to and then pick other ages when they suit us better.

Second I understand that alcoholism is a problem but that does not mean alcohol is evil and kids aren't even allowed to hear it exists until they turn 21. Some of my friends growing up lived in rural areas. People all around them had stills and were cranking out moonshine or brandy all the time. The kids were frequently involved in the process and were around alcohol there whole lives. The majority of the people that I saw grow up like this while they may drink as an adult do not have problems with it. The kids growing up in the city areas seem to have the most problem with alcohol. People were being arrested in my middle school for being drunk on the property. It's the kids that have no experience with alcohol that seem to have the biggest issues when they go to college or come of age that they can get it on there own.

And why not tie a science lesson in to a local industry. It's a great learning opportunity that many of the kids may have interest in because someone in there family might work there.

Basically I think society is wound up too tight and the fact that we like to ignore things we don't like can cause problems. So I think that it was a good lesson.

Or how about brewing up a homemade pop carbed naturally?

They could have just made "ethanol", and called it a demonstration of how to make fuel additives. A perfectly valid science experiment involving fermentation that is simply different terminology and corn based.

haerbob3 wrote:Or how about brewing up a homemade pop carbed naturally?

This could be a decent solution although I think the 0 tolerance patrol would still point out the very low amount of alcohol as being bad.

duff wrote:

haerbob3 wrote:Or how about brewing up a homemade pop carbed naturally?

This could be a decent solution although I think the 0 tolerance patrol would still point out the very low amount of alcohol as being bad.

You can get that much alcohol from cider or orange juice that's been in your fridge a bit too long.

mashani wrote:

duff wrote:

haerbob3 wrote:Or how about brewing up a homemade pop carbed naturally?

This could be a decent solution although I think the 0 tolerance patrol would still point out the very low amount of alcohol as being bad.

You can get that much alcohol from cider or orange juice that's been in your fridge a bit too long.

In my high school drivers ed class we had a day that was sponsored by MADD and where the main lesson was that under Michigans new law any one under 21 could be arrested for having a BAC of .001 or higher. They spoke out against even using mouth wash that had alcohol in it because it would start you down the drinking path.

yep school sure has changed. In HS Chem we made rum during our organic chem segment

This is a news flash? Well guys, the first time I ever did anything like brew was when I was a sophomore in HS and me and a buddy got a gallon jug, put some welch's grape juice and sugar and bread yeast in it, put a balloon over the top, and stuck it into the back of the closet under junk so the Mom's wouldn't find it.... It worked, tasted horrible, and we didn't do it again. it was easier to bribe the town drunk to go by us real stuff. This happens all the time.

Monty

Did not have to do that in HS, had buddies that could walk in and get anything we needed. Drank a lot of PBR and MadDog 20-20 back then.