My initial thought was to tell these guys "No," but they seemed to be pretty eager and on further consideration, I told them, at nearly the last minute, that I'd be happy to.

There are lots of kids who don't even consider going to college for one reason or another. They don't consider a career in the sciences, because they think it's too hard for them or because they think it's just "something somebody else does." Maybe they don't know anybody who does these things. "My parents don't do it, their parents didn't do it, my parents' friends don't do it, I've never even met anyone who knows anybody who does it. Why should I even consider it?"
I don't think it's as conscious as this. I suspect it's far more subtle.

In some environments, a child might have lots of opportunities for self-discovery. In others, there might be significantly fewer opportunities. If everyone's homelife were at least remotely comparable, there might be at least a weak case for letting kids figure everything out on their own. But they aren't. Not all children have parents with advanced degrees at home who can mentor them along. Not all kids have very high expectations placed on them.

The school takes a part of one day in an attempt to get the kids to think about things that they normally wouldn't think about. This is hardly an attempt to make them grow up too quickly. I don't know whether it's "the right thing to do," but I don't fault them for trying.

We could take a similar view of family life education, or home ec, or even of physics, "They'll figure it out during self-descovery. We shouldn't make them grow up so soon."

What is the great harm of getting them early and saying, "Look, you really can do whatever you set your mind to doing?" I see lots of upsides here and not one single downside.

k