A chemist once told me the two paths that bring people into chemistry are learning how to blow shit up and how to get high.

But yes, regardless of those two it should be easy to frame it as a magical adventure.

I heard from reputable sources that modern "little chemist" kits[0] have become quite boring, mostly for safety reasons (there's some nice single-use kits like Mel science but that's different).

Still, looks like you can still make a bunch of fun experiments in school? I've tried to engage my kids in some simple experiments (ph identification with cabbage, showing how bones can become brittle or rubbery depending on which components you remove, the classic soda&vinegar experiments etc).

University level treatment, dunno, seems like it should be fun but I had one chemistry class and balancing reductions is not that entertaining and that's most of it.

[0] I'm not sure of the actual English name, I mean those kits with a dozen things to combine, a becher, a Bunsen burner etc.

Well that and both government and businesses don't make a lot of amateur chemistry that easy. Many chemicals have to either be bought second hand out of someone's bulk purchase for a licensed lab, extracted out of consumer products, or bought off shady amazon dealers at massive markups with uncertain purity standards. God forbid somebody finds you doing random experiments suspicious and calls the cops or something who are going to automatically assume you are being bad or dangerous or making meth.

I've come back to report that after researching this, Electrons do flow from cathode to anode. Conventional current goes the other way if you're measuring ion (hole) flow in redox reactions for example. But I'm reasonably sure the electrons go the way I described.