Reminds me of a story I heard many years ago. In the 1960s a lot of British schools introduced Nuffield Science, one of the first hands-on science courses which assumed that nearly every lesson would involve practical work. Early on the teachers weren't really sure how to make this work, and one was trying a lesson on waves which involved a dozen ripple tanks (large flat trays with a centimetre or so depth of water) and groups of kids working in near darkness. So he told the kids that they were to study waves and suggested a few things they could try, sat down, and waited to see what would happen. There was a long puzzled silence, then from the back of the room he heard some excited noises. "It works!", he thought, and went down the room to see what was happening.
And found that some of the kids had taken newts from an aquarium and were racing them in one of the ripple tanks.
So it goes...
