When was the last time you got down on the floor and played a rip- roaring game of squiggle? Or chased a five-year-old around the house with a squirt gun? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the serious business of child's play.

SEGMENT 1

Shirley Steinberg and Joe Kincheloe are the editors of a new book of essays called "Kinderculture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood." They tell Jim Fleming that today's kids are different from those of earlier generations in some alarming ways and that corporations who market to children are largely responsible. Also, clinical psychologist Lawrence Cohen tells Anne Strainchamps how to play with children and why it's an important thing to do.

SEGMENT 2:

With her husband Peter, Iona Opie is one of the world's foremost authorities on children's rhymes from Mother Goose to the latest schoolyard doggerel. She tells Judith Strasser how she got into nursery rhymes, and why so many people like them. Opie's new nursery rhyme collection is "My Very First Mother Goose."

SEGMENT 3:

Robert Fagan is a wildlife biologist from the University of Alaska. He spends his summers at remote Park Creek, observing a pack of bears. Fagan tells Steve Paulson how the bears play and how important their games are to them.

• week of 02/23/97 - hour 3
• week of 03/01/98 - hour 3