In a November 1984 story for Technology Review, Carolyn Sumners, curator of astronomy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, described how toys, games, and even amusement park rides could change how young minds view science and math. “The Slinky,” Sumners noted, “has long served teachers as a medium for demonstrating longitudinal (soundlike) waves and transverse (lightlike) waves.” A yo-yo can be used as a gauge (a “yo-yo meter”) to observe the forces on a roller coaster. Marbles employ mass and velocity. Even a simple ball offers insights into the laws of gravity.

While Sumners focused on physics, she was onto something bigger. Over the last several decades, evidence has emerged that childhood play can shape our future selves: the skills we develop, the professions we choose, our sense of self-worth, and even our relationships.

That doesn’t mean we should foist “educational” toys like telescopes or tiny toolboxes on kids to turn them into astronomers or carpenters. As Sumners explained, even “fun” toys offer opportunities to discover the basic principles of physics. 

According to Jacqueline Harding, a child development expert and author of The Brain That Loves to Play, “If you invest time in play, which helps with executive functioning, decision-making, resilience—all those things—then it’s going to propel you into a much more safe, secure space in the future.”

Sumners was focused mostly on hard skills, the scientific knowledge that toys and games can foster. But there are soft skills, too, like creativity, problem-­solving, teamwork, and empathy. According to Harding, the less structure there is to such play—the fewer rules and goals—the more these soft skills emerge.

“The kinds of playthings, or play activities, that really produce creative thought,” she says, “are natural materials, with no defined end to them—like clay, paint, water, and mud—so that there is no right or wrong way of playing with it.” 

Playing is by definition voluntary, spontaneous, and goal-free; it involves taking risks, testing boundaries, and experimenting. The best kind of play results in joyful discovery, and along the way, the building blocks of innovation and personal development take shape. But in the decades since Sumners wrote her story, the landscape of play has shifted considerably. Recent research by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Early Childhood suggests that digital games and virtual play don’t appear to confer the same developmental benefits as physical games and outdoor play. 

“The brain loves the rewards that are coming from digital media,” says Harding. But in screen-based play, “you’re not getting that autonomy.” The lack of physical interaction also concerns her: “It is the quality of human face-to-face interaction, body proximity, eye-to-eye gaze, and mutual engagement in a play activity that really makes a difference.”

Bill Gourgey is a science writer based in Washington, DC.

Today’s climate-change kraken may have been unleashed by human activity—which has discharged greenhouse-gas emissions into Earth’s atmosphere for centuries—but reversing course and taming nature’s growing fury seems beyond human means, a quest only mythical heroes could fulfill. Yet the dream of human-powered flight—of rising over the Mediterranean fueled merely by the strength of mortal limbs—was also the stuff of myths for thousands of years. Until 1988.

That year, in October, MIT Technology Review published the aeronautical engineer John Langford’s account of his mission to retrace the legendary flight of Daedalus, described in an ancient Greek myth recorded by the Roman poet Ovid in Metamorphoses. Imprisoned on the island of Crete with his son Icarus, Daedalus, a skilled inventor, crafts wings of feathers and wax to escape. In his exuberance, Icarus defies Daedalus’s warning not to fly too close to the sun. His wings melt and he plummets to his death. With heavy heart, Daedalus completes the flight, landing in Sicily. 

“Daedalus became a quest to build a perfect airplane,” says Langford, reflecting on his project team’s mission. By some measures, they succeeded. Their plane, Daedalus 88, still holds the record for absolute distance (71.5 miles, or 115 kilometers) and duration (nearly four hours) of a human-powered flight. 

Of course, Langford’s team modified some of the mythical parameters. The aircraft replaced feathers and wax with carbon-­fiber wings, and the pilot, the Greek cyclist Kanellos Kanellopoulos, didn’t flap his way into history—he pedaled. Plus, the 500-mile journey to Sicily seemed beyond mortal capacity, so Langford and his team set their sights on Santorini.

The problem with the Daedalus project, and human-powered aircraft of any kind, is the grueling effort to remain aloft, the risk of crashing, and the expense—none of which was lost on Langford. “In itself, our Daedalus project could never answer the question ‘So what?’” he admits.

At the time, unseen clouds of human-­generated chlorofluorocarbons, gathering in Earth’s stratosphere for half a century, had blasted a seasonal hole in the protective ozone layer over Antarctica, signifying a disaster unfolding across Earth’s atmosphere. As the global community rallied, the “So what?” he was looking for emerged.

To Langford, an entrepreneur whose twin passions are climate research and sustainable aeronautics, the perfect plane is an unmanned aerial vehicle able to ply the stratosphere, collect climate data such as ozone readings, and harness the sun for its energy needs. Aurora Flight Sciences, his first company, unveiled such a plane, Odysseus, in 2018. His latest company, Electra, wants to decarbonize all aviation.

That a human-powered plane able to fly mere meters above the sea for a handful of hours managed to inspire solar-­powered robotic planes that continuously comb Earth’s stratosphere could make sense only in the context of our climate challenges. Such novel aircraft symbolize the ability of human beings to achieve mythic feats when joined in a common quest, however daunting.

Bill Gourgey is a science writer based in Washington, DC, and teaches science writing at Johns Hopkins University.