Intergalactic Education Revisited

Teachers often select young students to be the sun and planets. The student sun stands in the middle while the teacher helps students playing (and maybe dressed as) Mercury, Venus, Earth,  Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune walk in elliptical orbits around the sun. A moon also can be chosen to walk around Earth. Between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, students can play roles as rocks in the asteroid belt that some scientists think might be the remains of a planet that exploded in the solar system. (And, of course, there is the fear that one of the large rocks from the asteroid belt might hit Earth and destroy life here.) There is much more to the universe.

    Sometime later in a student's education a teacher, or shows with Carl Sagan or someone like him, may mention Earth is part of a solar system located on one side of the Milky Way galaxy, which is filled with other planets and billions of stars in fixed positions. Like our sun, some stars have two or more planets that might sustain extraterrestrial life. Some stars are brighter than others and some have different colors depending if they are dying or just developing. The universe is filled with a spectrum of light not visible with the naked eye.

     The Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the universe; the Andromeda galaxy is the biggest one closest to the Milky Way. At some places on Earth that are free of man-made lights, it's possible to see the stars in the Milky Way and the entire Andromeda galaxy spiral. A black hole that sucks up light seems to be located near the center of galaxies where it might hold galaxies together like the sun's gravity attracts the planets. When galaxies crash into each other, they seem to send ripples throughout the universe.

    Beyond their solar system, students have much to research about the universe and many ways to demonstrate what they have learned. Perhaps a Milky Way of students dressed as different colored stars could surround student stars holding a large black garbage bag representing a black hole. The rotating solar system students would be positioned on one side among the stars. Classrooms could even act as separate galaxies, bump into each other in the hall, and set off a kind of wave like that performed by spectators at a ball game.

   

   

How Do You Get Boys to Read (about the World)?

Since authors know girls like to read, one of the ways they lure boys to a book is by making their protagonists look just like them. Jeff Kinney's wimpy kid is Greg Heffley, and J.K.Rowling's young wizard is Harry Potter.

     Karen Katz uses the same approach in her new book, Roar, Roar Baby, for babies up to two year's old. She has a little boy looking for a tiger behind flaps that open to find  animals hiding all over the world. In Temple Run: Race Through Time to Unlock the Secrets of Ancient Worlds, Tracey West has a boy protagonist who finds clues that help him navigate safely through ancient civilizations. 

     Jon Scieszka, Stephanie Roth Sisson, and Brad Meltzer use a somewhat different approach to attract young male readers. In his series, Guys Read, Scieszka collects the true stories of adventure, sports, and male comedians that he knows little dudes would like.

     By presenting the true life stories of Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein, Sisson and Meltzer provide models of what boys can do with their lives. Sisson's book, Star Stuff, takes young men to the wonders of the 1939 World's Fair to illustrate what inspired Sagan to explore the mysteries of the universe. I Am Albert Einstein, by the historian Brad Meltzer, shows boys how ordinary people can change the world, even if they like to do things their own way, or maybe because they like their own ways of doing things. (Meltzer also has written a book about Amelia Earhart to inspire young girls.)

     Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, in his book, Raising Kids Who Read, urges families to let their children know, we are a family who likes to read because we like to learn (and share) new things. Kids who see adults and older siblings reading will want to imitate them.