Tag Archives: children

Pluto’s Secret: Writing the Museum’s First Children’s Book

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How did three staff members at the National Air and Space Museum get to collaborate on the Museum’s first children’s book, Pluto’s Secret: An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery?  The short answer is that this is an extraordinary place to work.  And when people are as generous with their time and talents as my collaborators have been, neat stuff happens.

Pluto’s Secret: An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery

The idea that became Pluto’s Secret began in the Writers’ Group that I hold for Museum curators and fellows.  We meet twice a month to share mutual problems we encounter in our research and writing of aviation and space history.  David DeVorkin, the Museum’s senior curator of space astronomy (who was present at the 2006 International Astronomical Union meeting in Prague during which astronomers voted on Pluto’s new designation), told the group about an article that he was writing about Pluto’s discovery and reclassification. David’s article examined how disagreements among astronomers over how Pluto should be categorized reflected pre-existing divisions in the field of astronomy. (You can find David’s final essay in Exploring the Planets (Palgrave, 2013)). David’s draft was called, “Pluto: The Problem Planet.” As a mother who spent many hours reading to my then-preschool son, our oldest, I thought, “That would be a great title for a children’s book!”

So, during my commutes in and out of Washington, DC, I added the story of Pluto’s discovery to the repertoire of tales that I would tell my son in the car to pass the time. Standard fairy tales had gotten repetitive and boring—I had even started retelling the same stories from different points of view to vary them, a skill that became useful for Pluto’s Secret —so I wanted something new.

When I eventually suggested Pluto’s tale to Trish Graboske, the Museum’s publications officer, she suggested the addition that made the Museum’s first children’s book a reality: Diane Kidd, the Museum’s early childhood manager, is also a professional children’s books illustrator! If she would illuminate our book, we might really have something. David and Diane agreed to take on the project with me and the rest is history (of science).

Margaret, David, and Diane

Margaret Weitekamp, David DeVorkin, and Diane Kidd

The collaboration between the three of us became my favorite part of this project. Usually, we learned, a children’s book illustrator might never meet the author at all. (Diane is working on a blog entry about her process to appear soon.)  This time, we met as a group to discuss the concept and we worked together, in person, throughout the whole process. I wrote and rewrote the text. Diane patiently subjected her beautiful artistic illustrations to David’s exacting reviews to check all of the details: the right telescopes, the correct astronomical domes, and even appropriate equations floating above Percival Lowell’s head. And David helped to refine the story with me. My son enjoyed (endured?) MANY bedtime readings (“When is it going to be real book?”), which were often interrupted as I scribbled on the pages to edit an awkward phrase or clarify a point.

At one point, David suggested a perspective that put everything in focus: Pluto does not change! Scientists’ ideas about Pluto changed as they learned more, but the icy world Pluto is just Pluto—out there on the edge of the solar system, being itself. The story needed a different point of view. It wasn’t the story of the scientists, interesting as they were. “Pluto, the Problem Planet” became Pluto’s Secret, the story of an icy world on the edge of the solar system that did not fit the label that scientists wanted to give it. (In fact, in 2006, because of Pluto, astronomers defined “planet” for the very first time.) Diane thought that kids would connect with the character of the icy world who was not bad, just different, and did not always follow the grown-ups’ arbitrary rules.

It’s so exciting to see Pluto’s Secret out in print. I’ve finally gotten to read a real, bound version to my three children at bedtime. And we look forward to telling this tale of discovery to audiences at the Museum and around the D.C. area. Come out and see us!

Margaret A. Weitekamp is a curator in the Space History Department of the National Air and Space Museum.

Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics… and Pre-Kindergarten

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President Obama’s “Educate to Innovate” campaign, announced last year, calls for increased literacy in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for all students. Increased STEM literacy means increased understanding of key scientific concepts, increased familiarity with technology and its applications, and increased exposure to the experimental process.

As one of the world’s most popular museums, our stories of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are engaging and relevant to old and young visitors alike. Just spend a day counting the number of school groups and young families ooh-ing and aah-ing over our exhibits! To all our staff and visitors, it’s obvious that the National Air and Space Museum is a key component of President Obama’s goals  to inform, challenge, and inspire students through STEM education.

One exciting way we are able to support STEM education in the DC Public Schools is through the Science in Pre-K Program, funded by PNC Bank’s Grow Up Great With Science program. Now starting its second year, Science in Pre-K provides professional development to DCPS preschool teachers to support teaching science through exploration and problem solving.

Science in Pre-K Session

Teachers explore the mechanics of water flow at the National Air and Space Museum during a Science in Pre-K session.

A core component of the Science in Pre-K program is giving teachers opportunities to explore science concepts themselves, before they introduce these ideas to their students. Too often teachers are asked to implement science units before they themselves are familiar with the material, particularly with early childhood and elementary teachers, who often don’t have strong science backgrounds. Early childhood staff met with teachers at the museum seven times during the school year for full-day science inquiry sessions. Teachers explored using the same materials their students used. Additionally, significant time was spent discussing the scientific concepts and theories behind their observations and discoveries.

Kids with a propeller

Science in Pre-K students check out the hands-on propeller in the Wright Brothers gallery.

Back in the classroom, 3- and 4-year-olds made connections between their daily science explorations and the bigger picture at the National Air and Space Museum. For example, during a recent unit on the properties of water, students explored water movement in their classrooms with tubes and water wheels. During their field trip at the National Air and Space Museum, students heard the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright’s first airplane making connections between how water flows and how air flows – and, how early airplanes used propellers to help them fly.

Connections like these, between the classroom and museums, are not only fun but critical in exciting teachers about STEM education – and children about STEM subjects. With the Science in Pre-K program at the National Air and Space Museum, teachers are equipped to inspire and instruct a new generation of scientists and engineers!

Lise Zinck is the Science in Pre-K program assistant in the Early Childhood Education department.

Runaway Balloons

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The afternoon of October 15, 2009 was one of those rare moments when Americans from coast-to-coast were riveted to their television sets by a news story unfolding in real time.  Six year old Falcon Heene was reported to be trapped aboard a helium balloon floating across the Colorado landscape at 7000 feet. The image on the screen was surreal, a strange craft looking like a cross between a Mylar grocery store balloon and a flying saucer, with a small circular structure on the bottom that appeared to be just large enough to house a small child. When the balloon came naturally to earth after a fifty mile flight, however, the boy was not aboard. Had he fallen to his death somewhere along the way? What appeared to be a tragedy in the making came to a happy ending when young Falcon was found hiding in a box where he had hidden to avoid the consequences of having accidently released his father’s experimental balloon. Ultimately, however, matters grew even more complex when local authorities launched an investigation to determine if the entire thing had been a hoax staged by the family.

I was one of very few television viewers who knew that runaway balloons, even runaway balloons with children on board, were big news a century and a half ago. Balloonist Timothy Winchester disappeared in 1855 during an attempt to fly across Lake Erie. Ira Thurston met his end over the same body of water on the afternoon of August 16, 1858 when he was accidently carried aloft by a balloon he was trying to deflate. Even the most experienced aeronauts occasionally fell victim to runaway balloons. Washington Donaldson vanished while attempting to fly across Lake Michigan in 1875. Four years later, seventy-one year old John Wise, who had completed 463 ascents since he first took to the air in 1835, disappeared while attempting the same feat.

Few of those tragedies captured public interest like the accidental aerial voyage of eight year old Martha Ann Harvey and her three year old brother David. The story begins with balloonist Samuel Wilson, who ascended from Centralia, Illinois on the morning of October 23, 1858 and flew twenty miles to a landing in the top of a tree owned by farmer Benjamin Harvey. The farmer and his neighbors assisted Wilson in extricating his balloon, after which Harvey climbed into the basket, hoping to make a tethered ascent.  When he proved too heavy, he placed his three children in the car. The father instructed his oldest daughter to climb out when the balloon still refused to rise, leaving the two youngest children in the basket alone.

Startled to find the balloon rising at last, the inexperienced ground crew lost their grip on the tether line. A dangling grappling hook tore through a rail fence as the craft climbed out of the farmyard. The distraught parents stood helplessly by as Martha’s cries of “Pull me down father!” grew ever fainter. Horsemen immediately set out to alert the countryside, while a party of men and boys tried unsuccessfully to follow the drifting balloon.

The news created a sensation in Centralia. The aeronaut assured everyone who would listen that the balloon would return to earth of its own accord within an hour or two, probably within thirty miles of the take off point. His words were of little comfort, however, as night fell with the children still somewhere aloft.

At 3 o’clock the following morning, Mr. Ignatio Atchison stepped out on his porch to observe Donati’s Comet.  Instead, he saw “an immense spectre rising from the top of a tree twenty yards away.” Approaching closer, he heard a faint voice: “Come here and let us down. We are almost frozen.” The lost had been found.

News of the rescue was announced in area churches that Sunday to “ecstasies of joy.”   The children returned home the next day to be greeted by the discharge of cannon “and a general jubilee.” William Matthews, the local daguerreotype artist, captured an image of the young hero and heroine in their Sunday best. An engraved copy of the photo appeared in the illustrated newspapers of the era, spreading the story of the balloon adventure of the Harvey children across the nation. As in the case of Falcon Heene, all’s well that ends well.

Tom Crouch is Senior Curator for Aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum.