The youtube channel Cody's Lab certainly deserves a mention here. For example, the extraction of iodine from seaweed is an excellent 10-min watch. It's mostly on the inorganic side, just search the channel for a random element and something interesting will pop up - try potassium, iron, silver, bromine, gallium, etc.
(Should note however, that demonstrating robust safety standards is not this channel's strong point).
For an older view of chemistry, the book "The Romance of Modern Chemistry (1909)" covers quite a bit of interesting material, and there's also a good librivox recording of it. It's really amazing how much chemical knowledge was discovered in the 19th century, even if they didn't have solid theories (QM etc.) to explain their discoveries.
Also, there are some nice youtube videos on various simple organic synthesis methods, such as aspirin from salicylic acid and acetic anhydride. You can buy small quantities of acetic anhydride but I imagine it gets reported (this is the same reaction used to convert morphine to heroin, which sort of demonstrates the foolishness of the war on drugs).
Chemistry can be a lot of fun and is very interesting, but successful work really requires painstaking attention to detail, expensive equipment (good spectroscopy), management of waste, careful note-taking, a fair amount of manual dexterity, knowledge of risks and hazards, etc.
Ctrl-F for "waste" only turned up your comment. Waste management of all the experiments the article describes had me wincing as an industrial chemist. I'd say it's not so much the safety of home chemistry that keeps me away from introducing it to my kids as much as the sheer complexity of disposing of all these myriad chemicals and reactions. My guess is that's the main culprit in removing most interesting chemicals from home chemistry kits, and no one in this thread really appreciates that.
The problem with plans like this are typically the seals. It is difficult to be a good sealant and chemically stable w.r.t. a variety of solvents and environmental stressors (heat, cold) for extended periods of time. Most seals get brittle and develop cracks long before the container shows any wear and tear. Burying expounds the issue, as now you also have to worry about stuff leaking in, instead of just stuff leaking out.
https://www.youtube.com/user/theCodyReeder/featured
(Should note however, that demonstrating robust safety standards is not this channel's strong point).
For an older view of chemistry, the book "The Romance of Modern Chemistry (1909)" covers quite a bit of interesting material, and there's also a good librivox recording of it. It's really amazing how much chemical knowledge was discovered in the 19th century, even if they didn't have solid theories (QM etc.) to explain their discoveries.
https://archive.org/details/romance_modern_chemistry_1008_li...
Also, there are some nice youtube videos on various simple organic synthesis methods, such as aspirin from salicylic acid and acetic anhydride. You can buy small quantities of acetic anhydride but I imagine it gets reported (this is the same reaction used to convert morphine to heroin, which sort of demonstrates the foolishness of the war on drugs).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4NMpO1xI8U
Chemistry can be a lot of fun and is very interesting, but successful work really requires painstaking attention to detail, expensive equipment (good spectroscopy), management of waste, careful note-taking, a fair amount of manual dexterity, knowledge of risks and hazards, etc.