Mythbuster’s Adam Savage has been a stalwart promoter of STEM education and encouraging kids to go out and get busy with their hands making things. This interview is particularly good, as he draws comparisons between the schools of today and yesterday, as well as the simple toys that encouraged critical thinking from yesteryear and today’s toys that lack anything that might be construed as promoting risky behavior due to product liability concerns. He concisely explains that as a result of these and many other restrictions,  children have become ‘risk averse’ and are unwilling to try new things. American innovation has always been based on risk taking, and this fear that has overtaken our students needs overcome-and it may be time to make certain risk taking (ie likely to fail the first time) strategies a specific outcome for STEM curriculum. Savage believes strongly that the growth of the ‘maker’ culture can provide the impetus to help return us to a risk taking environment, where kids learn that failing experiments lead to improved designs and a special feeling of accomplishment that students don’t doing math practice problems or prearranged science demonstrations. So watch the video, and make plans to have your STEM program embrace the maker culture, and bring your students to a local maker faire if you can. That may be as much ‘risk’ as some teachers can take for the moment, but it’s a solid start.