She broke barriers, sonic and otherwise, when she flew into orbit as the first American woman in space. She broke another when she died of pancreatic cancer yesterday, at age 61, and her family let it be known that “Dr. Ride is survived by her partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy.”
Presented without comment to all the girls who like science. Thanks, XKCD!
My son is always complaining that his school doesn’t do enough science. It’s the result, I believe, of the much maligned No Child Left Behind educational policy and its focus on core math and reading skills to the neglect of science, social studies, history, and other subjects. Not that the core skills aren’t important—but I firmly
I have a special guest this week while Helen is away on a business trip— our six-year-old son. He offers his thoughts on one of his favorite books of the moment, Redwoods, by Jason Chin. It’s not LGBT-related at all, but it’s delightful, and our son likes it, which is reason enough for me to
Children get turned off to science early, says Scientific American, saying, “Studies have found that children in kindergarten are already forming negative views about science that could cast a shadow across their entire educational careers. . . . Furthermore, even before first grade, fewer girls than boys say they like science.” One solution, from educational
Here’s a fun one for the kids (and grown-ups, too), in honor of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing: Google has launched an upgrade to its Google Earth software with information and activities about the lunar landings. According to Google, you can now: Take tours of landing sites, narrated by Apollo astronauts View 3D
If you can keep your kids up till 10:01 p.m. EST tonight (and still maintain their sanity and yours tomorrow), you can share with them the rare occurrence of a total lunar eclipse, the last one until December 2010. Both Sky and Telescope and NASA have details on the event, which should be visible in
On Tuesday, NASA Commander Pamela Melroy is scheduled to blast off in the space shuttle Discovery, headed for the International Space Station (ISS), where she will be met by ISS Commander Peggy Whitson. This is the first time women have been in command of both the shuttle and the ISS at the same time. The
In my last post, I wrote about the very cool new Google Sky and how it could be a fun way to teach kids about astronomy. As an astronomy major myself, and someone who is married to an engineer, I’m all for science education, particularly for girls, who still tend to be overlooked when it
We always knew Google was planning to take over the universe. They come one step closer with the release of Google Sky, part of an upgrade to their very cool Google Earth software. If you or your children are into astronomy, or have to learn more about it as part of a school science project,
