Mars Curiosity and *the* Space Book for Kids (by sarah)
I spent last week working at the Times Cheltenham Science Festival and as part of it I got to go and see a few of the talks which was brilliant. The first one I selected was Mars Curiosity as I spotted it had my old personal tutor Sanjeev Gupta in it. I also got a ticket for Jeany even though at 7 I thought she might be a bit young but she would never have forgiven me if I had gone to see such a talk with out her!
Sanjeev taught one of my favourite subjects at uni Earth Surface Processes so I was very excited to see how Mars research was going especially after seeing the prototype with Jeany earlier in the week. He looked basically the same but has grey hair! He still moves around far too much for a decent photo but that is what energises his talks (of course he didn't recognise me when I said hello - boo hiss but it has been ten years).
The other talker was Lewis Dartnell who was very engaging and handled the childrens' questions brilliantly at the end including the sad, 'When is it coming home?' Jean has been going on about forever vacations on Mars ever since!
Jean did get a bit confused about the fact the robot is ingesting Mars and yet needed batteries! I explained in whispers that it was eating the rock to see what it was made off and not as food. I was impressed she knew what ingesting ment to be honest. They went through the grissly details of man missions and radiation sickness and stuff Jean is still determined to go to Mars if she can or failing that she asked me if she could build a robot to go and then worked out that the 2030 mission would be a good one for her (she'll be 24).
After the talk I had to head over for a meeting but took Jean to Alaric and Mum and Dad to get the book she wanted signed. My meeting ended really quickly and just as well as I received a phone call from Al saying they couldn't find the book! I asked and was told it had sold out but then I saw a copy on the signing table and ended up talking to a lady who turned out to be the authors wife! It was the last copy!
Jean went and got it signed and I felt an ache of sadness for my impact lithologies and endolithic organisms and a moment of doubt about science communication instead of trying to go back but I missed that boat a long time ago. Jean was instantly obsessed by the book and Alaric and Lewis had a conversation involving lots of hands about space ship design. We had to drag the still reading Jean away from the table so that he could go home!
Jean has had her noise in the book ever since, it is a good childrens' book, informative, fun and easy to read but also it is gamified - the kids get to choose where they go on a stella holiday - Jean has always loved books like You Choose so this is right up her street. The illustrations are lovely and colourful, some simple and some intricate giving it a wide appeal to kids as it has different levels you can appreciate it on. It is one of the best I have seen recently and Jean took it into show and tell at school this week along with her cave man stickers and her t-shirt saying Question Everything. She proudly showed the other kids that it was signed with her name in as well 🙂
Jeany was very excited that they had mentioned Liecester as we had spent the previous week going around the space centre there etc... with my friend Becca 🙂 (still need to process the photos and blog about all of that!)
Here is me and Jeany in our festival t-shirts - I'm hiding it at the end as it isn't that flattering of me! hee hee!
Astronomy, Electronics, Events and Outings, Geology, Jean, Sarah, Sci/Tech, Work | sarah | 
Fri 14th Jun 2013 9:28 am
Subscribe