In the middle of a sand pool surrounded by redwood logs and small boulders, a grid of PVC pipe from the sprinkler system runs this way and that, channelling water into a series of lakes that six little boys are continuously digging with red and yellow shovels. A leak in one of the pipes shoots three feet into the air. There is much laughing and carrying on. No, that s just a leak drip. Leak drips are good.
Drip leaks are nice.
Big leaks are not nice. This engineering project threading and re-threading pipes, creating dams and watershed will continue for the next 90 minutes, becoming more and more complex until the boys, the sleeves of their shirts and the hems of their shorts wet and caked with sand, are called in for snack. Our mission is to provide a laboratory where students and faculty can come and study child development, study children in a natural setting. In fact, some of the most fundamental research in all of child psychology has been conducted at Bing. Eleanor Maccoby s study of the development of gender differences demonstrated the early emergence of gender segregation.