Old School Science Models

LIFE magazine has posted a gallery of bizarrely wonderful old school scientific models. Don't miss the giant fetus or massive colon (double ew). Behold, science education before computers ruled our world.

A girl scout leans in to take a closer look at an enclosed model of the solar system, circa 1920s.

An exhibit illustrates the biology of the chicken at the World Poultry Exhibition at the Crystal Palace exhibition hall in London.

A technician works on life-like models for use in science and health lectures at the Cologne Health Museum in Germany.

A technician at the Cologne Health Museum gets into his work.

A model tide-simulator at Cambridge University, England.

American amateur inventor Russel E. Oakes demonstrates a model of his way-before-its-time hydraulic device which turns off bedroom lights after a person has fallen asleep.

Corporal Sam Parker uses a giant model skull at the Royal Air Force's Dental Training Establishment at Halton in Buckinghamshire to instruct trainee hygienists.

Pioneer geneticist and biologist James Watson handles an early model of molecular DNA. In 1953, Watson, Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA -- arguably the single most significant medical and biological breakthrough in the history of science.

A model of a human cell displayed at an American Medical Association convention.

A man (look closely, you'll find him) stands inside a model of a human cell at an American Medical Association convention.

Renowned rocket scientist Dr. Wernher von Braun (1912 - 1977) poses with a model of a hypothetical rocket designed for the Disney television series, Man and the Moon, six years before John F. Kennedy's famous 1962 "We choose to go to the moon" speech that turbo-charged the American space program.

Scientists study the phases of the moon on lunar models in preparation for an eventual manned flight to moon.

Chrysler Corporation scientists Dr. Philip Lett (left) and Lovell Lawrence examine a model of a lunar exploration vehicle, to be powered by liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The project never got much beyond the model phase.

Huge model of a human fetus at an exhibition at the National History Museum, South Kensington, London. 

Trainee nurses examine a model of a human body to learn anatomy. 

Model of a bisected human skull exhibited as part of a large model of the human nervous system w. number wires representing various nerves, at he American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science meeting.

A young woman pokes her head out while crawling through a 40-foot long, 4-foot high replica of a human colon, used to educate people on colorectal cancer.