Julia Brodsky is an educator, NASA astronaut instructor, and the STEM Education Lead at the Blue Marble Institute of Science. With her colleagues, she recently founded Earthlings Hub.
Guest | Julia Brodsky, Founder and Lead Instructor, Art of Inquiry [@artofinquiry]
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliabrodsky/
On YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@artofinquiry
Host | Matthew S Williams
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/matthew-s-williams
______________________
This Episode’s Sponsors
Are you interested in sponsoring an ITSPmagazine Channel?
👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/sponsor-the-itspmagazine-podcast-network
______________________
Episode Description
Julia Brodsky is an educator, NASA astronaut instructor, and the STEM Education Lead at the Blue Marble Institute of Science. With her colleagues, she recently founded Earthlings Hub.
Earthlings Hub is a non-profit education and outreach organization dedicated to bringing astronomy and STEM education to refugees and orphans in Ukraine. In the midst of war, this program inspires children to think big and have hope for the future.
______________________
Resources
Art of Inquiry: https://www.artofinquiry.net/
Earthlings Hub: https://earthlingshub.org/
______________________
For more podcast Stories from Space with Matthew S Williams, visit: https://itspmagazine.com/stories-from-space-podcast
E42 - Julia Brodsky
MW: The authors acknowledge that this podcast was recorded on the traditional unseeded lands of the
Lekwungen peoples.
Hello, and welcome back to stories from space. I'm your host Matt Williams. Today my guest is Julia Brodsky, and astrophysicist, researcher, and educator. She is also the founder and CEO of Art of Inquiry, an online science resource for middle school children, a former NASA astronaut instructor, and the STEM education lead at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science.
Today, we'll be talking about her work with Earthlings’ Hub, an inquiry-based education initiative for refugee children led by scientists, educators, and psychologists. Julia, thank you for joining me.
JB: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
MW: So I want to thank you for joining us here today. Because at Stories from Space, we are focused on space related-news, history, developments, innovation, and so forth, but also on education and outreach, and how space is being used to make the world a better place. And that is something you're pretty intimately familiar with, isn't it?
That's true. This is probably what is the main focus of what I do. I do that.
MW: So tell us a bit more about Earthlings’ Hub.
JB: So, I have been doing astrobiology outreach for several years. I was doing it at the Art of Inquiry. And I also was doing it as a STEM education lead at Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, leading programs called Ask an Astrobiologist, that is for kids and Blue Marble.
And so, teaching the kids all over the globe, and also teaching undergraduate students on how to start their own space related educational Hubs at different places such as Colombia, India, Turkey, and so on.
So when the war started, I was completely devastated. My husband is from Kyiv. I didn't know what to expect. I thought, you know, “what can I do to stop this war?” I'm a part of science policy cohort at American Geophysical Union. So, I tried to write some petitions with my colleagues. But partitions unfortunately, don't work that fast and don't do much at the situations.
So, I thought, what else can I do? What can be done immediately? So, I got together with my colleagues and fellow educators and scientists and psychologists, and we started the Earthlings’ Hub.
- 1 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
And the Earthlings’ Hub is the initiative under the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science. So that was a much easier way for us to start a nonprofit initiative. And we also got support from my colleagues and Blue Marble.
So, and the people who started the Earthlings’ Hub, besides me. Sasha Power, he has a PhD from U of Chicago in astronomy and astrophysics. And he works at Harvard right now doing the science, sociology, and writing a mentorship program for students who come to the US from other countries. So he has a huge network of graduate students and postdocs, and many of them volunteered to help us at the Earthlings’ Hub.
And our other founder is Yulia Turchaninova, who has an immense experience in education and science education, as well as in psychology, who trained literally tens of thousands of teachers all around the globe, and who is trusted by people in Ukraine. Educators in Ukraine know her.
So together, it was them who started this program, and our advisory board includes NASA astronaut, Greg Chamitoff, and AI visionary, Joscha Bach, and the professor of learning and cognition the author of NetLogo Language, Uri Wilensky. And his graduate students actually helped us and led some classes for the students. And also professor of child psychiatry, Yuli Fradkin, from Rutgers and Yale. And many amazing teachers, psychologists, scientists and coordinators, who are helping us over a year now.
MW: Yeah, so this puts me in mind of a lot of education and outreach programs that are really starting to explode today, right. The number and the reach of them is really growing. And in most cases, it's about leveraging all the new media technology and developments in AI to reach, like, remote areas or underserved communities. But you guys are specifically working with refugees and orphans in Ukraine right now. I mean, that's the big focus right now, isn't it?
JB: Yes, this is not easy at all, to teach kids who are sitting there under the rockets and bombs. They’re sitting and trying to learn through the blackouts. And it's, you cannot really design lessons in a regular way, you cannoy have a consecutive course, you cannot build upon what was said last time, right? Because you don't know whether the child will be able to connect next time or not, whether they will have no electricity or no internet.
So it leads to completely different design of a course and really attract not just people who want to do well, right, to help the children; but also people who are extremely creative and extremely flexible, and who are able to learn and change on the go to adjust to all the conditions of the world. And the way we do it, we come up with some overarching concepts.
For example, for me, as I'm teaching astrobiology, I talk a lot about complexity about how complex systems emerge and complex behavior emerge from simple agents that are connected by certain specific, relatively simple rules, right?
- 2 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
For example, how do neurons come together and shape the brain that is functional on a completely different level, or life in general, right? We start with some simple components, and somehow, we have a cell tissue, and so on, or even on the social level, humans versus a nation, right?
So we take that concept, and then we approach it from different angles, from different examples, and so on. So even if a child misses a class, that's not a big deal. They will hear it again, they will learn the terminology, they will get examples of the concepts from the different perspectives. This is just one of the examples on how we're trying to adjust for the reality. So teaching children during the war.
MW: And if there were sort of a message here, it’d be that their lives have been turned upside down, and there's war all around them, but they have a right to keep learning and we don't want this to be like a massive interrupt. Right, the “war years.”
JB: It’s not just the interruption. You need to give this children some hope, some vision of the future, right? And you need to give them, to help them to see the bigger picture, to feel a part of the human civilization. And when they're connecting, you know, from dark and wet and cold, bomb shelter. This is quite a non- trivial thing to do.
These children, they left behind their friends, they left behind the teachers, they're in the new situation. They don't know what's going to happen with them tomorrow. But they come to this class, they see a caring and knowledgeable adult. They meet their peers who are interested in the same subject as they are. So they can share their ideas.
They feel welcome. They feel understood and supported. They feel a part of a bigger scientific community. And we discuss I tell the kids with “Qe’re not here to discuss the answers. We're here to discuss the questions.” So astrobiology for example, is such a rich source of questions that no one on this planet knows the answers to. Right? So we think together and we try to brainstorm together. We try to see how we can approach this or that question. And we role model thinking, we role model making mistakes. And this is what they will need to say Her wife is thrive and continue their education.
MW: Yeah, I totally understand it. It is amazing, isn't it? How just looking up at the night sky, and then studying how fascinating the Universe is, if it inspires people, it gives them hope.
JB: Yeah, I just wanted to tell you this completely inspiring and heartbreaking at the same time story. When Russia was bombing Ukraine this winter, lots of the cities just had no light at night whatsoever. And some kids approached their school principal and said, “Of course, it's bad that we don't have any electricity. But now we can see the skies very clearly, we can see the stars. If only we had a telescope, we could actually learn now more about starry skies.”
And the principal reached out to us. And we're now working with Mike Simons and Astronomers Without Borders, trying to obtain telescopes for the seals.
- 3 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
MW: Beautiful. Yes. That story. In fact, I was hoping you'd share it because I got a little preview for my viewers. They're full disclosure. But yeah, the idea that the students would sort of find that silver lining. “We’re without lights, but that means we're without light pollution. Let's stargaze!” And wow, yes. I'm so very impressed with their ability to do that. So what kinds of questions? When you're talking to students, right, and you're encouraging them to ask the big questions, what typically will they ask you?
JB: Well, what is life? And how the life started? That obviously is one of the biggest questions right? Or the development of the Universe, is the Universe infinite? That is a common question. I love to tell people about our discussions, about the movement in the Universe, right? When I asked the kids whether the Earth goes around the Sun, everyone knows that, right? They all say yes, but then they ask, “What about the Sun?” Does it stay still, or does it move anywhere?” And then the kids just look at me and I say that the Sun just wobbles,
MW: Yeah, well, does it? “Yes, but...”
JB: But the Sun actually does wobble, right? Around the center of mass. Yes. But it also moves extremely fast, around the center of the galaxy, right? And the galaxy also moves, and the Universe itself is expanding. And this is such an existential shift in their understanding of the Universe. And from there, we'll start talking about the living things that live in this ever-changing Universe. The Universe is changing and its constant, right?
And from there, we can talk about time, and time in the Universe and time on different planets. What time it is on Mars right? Now, this is a great question always. And we can go really in depth to discuss that. Or evolution, right? If everything is changing all the time. If we want to survive, we really need to adapt to these changing conditions, how do we do it? So, we can start really small and then very quickly, just burst, you know, explode in different directions, and then you can help the children to follow any paths they choose.
MW: Do they, the students, ask if we'll ever live on other planets like Mars or exoplanets? Because I mentioned...
JB: Ah, we have discussed the potential planetary bases right on Mars, on the Moon, and even the clouds he does on Venus, right? That was one of the possibilities that was actually discussed by NASA. And we do talk about the problems we can expect to experience on Mars, right? Because, not just the radiation, but the lack of proper atmospheric pressure, the gravitation, right?
We all know, and I do talk to the kids about what happens to us. When we're on board the Space Station, we're in microgravity. That the heart muscle shrinks, that the calcium from our bones ends up in our kidneys, etc. So we are not that well suited to live in a low gravity environment. And this may be one of the
- 4 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
biggest issues for the problems of human exploration of Mars. Venus, on the other hand, is a much better option, if it would not be such a hellish place to live. But then we can think of what we can do about it.
MW: Oh, I agree. Like Venus actually has close to Earth-like gravity, right? Roughly 90%, I think, And yes. Yes. If only the atmosphere weren't the worst place ever. Very... yes. If there is such a thing as hell, I imagine it's right on this.
JB: I think so, right? You know, like we actually talk with the kids about Venus. When we talk about Earth, right? There is a term Venusiation right now. When we talk about that... early Venus quite possibly had liquid water and was suitable for life. And about the time the first plants were making onto land here on Earth, something happened there. And look what's going on there? Right?
And we don't know, what was the tipping point? And we really don't know when we'll hit such a tipping point here on Earth. And this is one of the reasons we should be careful and actually take good care about this planet. So astrobiology, even though we discuss the astrobiology over and over, it brings us back to Earth.
MW: Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on methanogenic life, like on Titan?
JB: Oh, this is one of the favorite topics for the kids. Of course, I introduce it to the kids. How the pictures from the Huygens probe on Titan. The first time I saw them, I think it was on National Geographic many years ago, I was completely fascinated. It looks so much like Earth. It was so beautiful. And yet it's so strange and so foreign, right?
So yes, of course, we do talk about the possibility of life, the cryogenic life, right? If you don't need to be in the habitable zone. We discussed the idea of the habitable zone. But then we start talking about we don't really need to live on the surface. So we also discussed at the moons of Saturn, like Enceladus and Europa as well.
MW: Oh, yes. The ocean worlds? Yeah. Oh that’s...
JB: The kids are extremely fascinated by that. And you can always get the kids excited when they realize even our solar system, you could say, our neighborhood is unexplored. And we don't really know whether there is life on any other celestial objects in our Solar System, right? So for many kids, it is extremely fascinating and very new.
MW: So before I ask about your other very interesting things that you've done, is there any other stories that are particularly interesting heartwarming that you want to share?
JB: Yes, so we have been doing the Earthings Hub activities for over a year now. And we have been teaching kids that were relocated from Ukraine. That's how we started, then we got approached by
- 5 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
orphanages. And children in the orphanages, well, of course they always get less education, unfortunately, than other kids. They don't get as many opportunities to visit museums, to go somewhere by themselves.
So, when we come and talk to them about this amazing Universe, it's like vitamins for them. You can see that they need it, right? So they just tuck it in. And of course, it also takes their mind off what's happening right now. It allows them to dream. It allows them to think about what they can do when they grow up. They see that what they consider their limitations are not actually limitations. We talk about different opportunities, different careers, as well.
So they ask us all types of questions. “What can I do if I like this, if I like that?” And we help them to find their paths and help them to find a mentor in their in the things that interests them. And then we got approached by the refugee shelters in Ukraine. And these kids, they continue coming to us for a year now. They connect from bomb shelters. They connect from dark bathrooms, because their parents think that this is the safest place in the house.
And in the very beginning of our classes, there was a child, a 16 year old boy who said, “Sorry, I'm connecting from this dark bathroom because my mom says it's the safest place.” That they just put a mattress inside the bathtub. And he was sitting there in the darkness with his laptop. And he said, “Please, please teach me all the science, all geometry and physics because they want to grow and become an architect, and they want to rebuild Ukraine.”
MW: Oh, my. Yes. So what are some of the biggest challenges of running an organization like this?
JB: This is the first time I'm running a nonprofit. So I'm learning as we go. And I know how to engage
educators and they know how to engage students. I... I am still learning how to raise money.
MW: So it's fair to say partnerships are very important, right? Are there any other organizations that you've partnered with... space advocacy, etc.
JB: So right now, we're partnering with many Ukrainian organizations that support the refugees and who actually maintain those refugee shelters., right? We talk with UNICEF Ukraine. Right now, we got some support from emergent ventures from George Mason University. But mostly, again, we have lots of partnerships with educational organizations, but we're still learning how to partner with others. And we really want to partner with more organizations who could help us to obtain more visibility so we could actually share the stories of these children.
For example, right now we're helping an orphanage and school for blind children in Rivne. And these children, they really want to learn. They asked us for coding classes, for English classes, for mathematics. And we are helping them to obtain the right specialists, the right experts, to obtain the learning materials that are very different from regular materials.
- 6 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
MW: Now, of course, I wanted to ask you about some of your other activities. Now you founded Art of Inquiry. And that's an online education source for preteens. And clearly, it's very much related right to drugs in your background in education. And as I understand it is also involved with astrobiology and astronomy.
JB: Absolutely. So I am a mom of three kids, and I'm an educator. And I was looking at what's happening with the world right now, and what's happening with education. And I honestly got frustrated, because the world is changing so fast, and the education is behind. I was thinking, like, “what should my children and my students learn right now to survive in this fast, changing, unpredictable world?” And I was thinking, what is happening?
So our planet is being changed at like a neck-breaking speed. The climate, the landscape, the oceans, everything. We're changing ourselves. We're inventing new medicines. We are inventing genetic engineering, synthetic biology, whatnot. And we are about to share the planet with a non-human mind, right, that we are developing right now - the artificial intelligence
And we adults have no idea of how to live in this world. We don't have the answers for the children. Like thousands of years ago, a child would live almost the same life as their parents, grandparents, and so on. So, it made sense just to keep teaching the same skills and the same approaches. These days, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. So what should we teach kids in this world?
And the reason I turn to astrobiology is because, first of all, astrobiology is dealing with the new world, right? That's the purpose of astrobiology. Life in the new and uncharted terrain. unexplored worlds.
Astrobiology brings together all the sciences. It brings together astronomy, biology. I talk to the kids about how the chemicals were made, or were made inside the stars, helping them to connect everything and to build this interconnected big picture in their mind.
And from there... So, the first year of the Art of Inquiry school - Life and Universe - and we talk about the theories of the origin of life, and how's the life struggled on this planet, all the mass extinctions, all the challenges and obstacles that life had to overcome. The ways we are exploring, searching for life on other planets, the ways we are bringing life into space, and so.
So but then my second year is Mind and Universe. And this is something we don't know much about. We don't know much about ourselves, we don't know much about other minds that are sharing the planet with us at this moment. So nonhuman minds animals, other living creatures, right? And they are.
So we spent the second year talking about, first, what we call it: other minds. How do human beings see this planet? And we talk about the limitations of the human perception. We cannot see as well as a hawk. We cannot, you know, smell something as wel, as a dog. We cannot hear like a dolphin, we cannot
- 7 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
communicate like a dolphin. Well, unless we're using scientific instrument. And so on. So we're talking about us seeing the very thin sliver of the Universe.
And this actually brings the idea of science, you know, right and square into the picture, right? Because this is the way we can actually learn more about the Universe. And then talk about ourselves. So we talk about the emergence of brain. We talk about the brain actually emerged independently several times, meaning that we may in fact expect the extraterrestrials to have a brain. Not all living creatures have a brain. Some creatures do just fine without a brain. Jellyfish have survived through all the mass extinctions just fine. Yellow slime mold solves puzzles without having any brain.
So we can brainstorm about the types of living creatures that can even as a planets. We also talk about things like Voyager probe, and the Golden Records, the messages that we're sending to extraterrestrials. And we talk to the kids about that. And it helps us to define ourselves. Because the kids look at the pictures that were sent, and they just laugh.
They say it was “Ha!” It was 1977, so no smartphones. “Come on! And we wanted to show them that we are an advanced civilization.” And I tell the kids, it will take Voyager millions and millions of years until they reach some other civilization, if they reach them. Just imagine how much we humans will change by then.
Our values will change, the way we look like may change. We can change genetically, we can change ourselves genetically, we can merge with the IA. I cannot even imagine what's going to happen. How can we define ourselves? How do we define what the human is? So this is the type of questions we actually discuss with 10 to 14 year olds.
MW: I gotta say you're lighting a fire in my brain right now. A lot of a lot of what you just said, it's ticking off my favorite subjects. But yes. Oh, these are such fun questions, aren't they? Right. Contemplating the future. What could intelligence be like out there? What do we even know about intelligence down here? It comes in so many forms. Oh, such good questions! I’m almost ashamed because I want to switch gears here for a second. So, you were also a NASA instructor at one time. What can you tell me about that?
JB: Well, that was my first job right out of college. I knew nothing, and that was absolutely a blessing because they were just starting to build the International Space Station, and no one knew much about it. So, my manager, who was the leader of the training department at Johnson Space Center at that time.
He hired lots and lots of young people right out of college. And he knew that we still remember how to learn. We can prepare for an exam and two days, right? So, we still have all these skills, and we are full of energy. So, he had this amazing group of people, very enthusiastic. And he told us, “I'm here to support you. Tell me if you need any experts, any books, any resources, any engineering, schematics, any connections, I'm here for you.”
- 8 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
That was absolutely amazing. I was very lucky to get such a manager as my first one, that I, right after college. And that was extremely interesting. Every time I would come to work, I would learn something new. I would meet some new people. It was so intellectually stimulating. That was absolutely amazing. My brain was just buzzing, resulting in new information and new ideas and new theories and so on.
And then, of course, I had to kind of digest it all, and prepare first lessons and lectures for the astronauts, and then system simulations, how to train them on specific systems of the International Space Station. And later, for SSTs, a Space Station Training facility. And we would come up with all types of evil scenarios – “Your system breaks here, then you get the fires,” and you get to say, “Figure out what you're going to do!” in all of these situations.
We astronaut instructors would get together as a group and sit there. And as I'm saying, exercising all part of our brains, for sure. “So I will break this, and you will break that, and this will affect his system,” and so on. So and then we would see how astronauts would work together as a crew, and how they would work together with the flight controllers to resolve these issues.
And at times we would hit a situation which no one predicted. So, we actually help them to develop new flight procedures. So, it was a very intense and very collective work. So, we were all helping each other. It was an amazing group.
MW: Yes, sounds wonderful! This sounds like a very, very interesting path you followed. And it does feel like all of that brought you to a point where you could do outreach and education for people who really needed it the most, really needed the hope and inspiration of space and the big “What Ifs?” Children in a warzone, children who are just hanging on waiting for their lives to assume some new state of normal. I gotta tell ya, that sounds like it'd be a very, very tough and challenging things.
JB: It is tough, and their parents are also very traumatized. If you can imagine like, for example, we’re mostly talking moms, right? The dads are on the frontlines, the moms are with their children. They’re displaced, they are placed wherever they have open space, right? For example, a daycare center, you can imagine. So you have moms with nursing kids, with was toddlers, you have elderly people on wheelchairs.
All of these people, they're strangers, they're all brought together. And then you expect the kids to learn in this environment? And then you expect the kids to maintain the interest and motivation? It is extremely difficult. Parents have PTSD, children withdrawn, and so on. So, this is a very difficult and somewhat unusual situation, right, for us.
But what we're doing, besides teaching the kids, and the reason why we have psychologists there. We offer weekly classes for the parents and for the caregivers, who can come and ask us any question about the relationship with a child, about educational issues that they have as a child, and so on. And we have psychologists and educators to start in those webinars and answering whatever questions they have there
- 9 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
and trying to help them as much as we can. And by supporting the parents we're also supporting the children. It just does work by itself.
And actually, see, when we're trying to develop some working approach and a comprehensive approach here, I really hope it will be translatable to whatever other situation - and unfortunately, we do have the situations all over the globe right now – that we will be able to use developments or approaches to help other organizations who are helping kids in other places.
MW: That, actually, was my next question. If and when the situation in Ukraine becomes resolved, and the rebuilding can begin, do you have any plans for sort of starting up the same efforts in other parts of the world? And it sounds like the answer is yes.
JB: We would be very happy to share whatever we have, and to educate the volunteers and to share all our materials, for sure. I actually have a student and undergraduate - okay, she just graduated actually, not an undergraduate anymore - in Pakistan, who is teaching astrobiology to Pakistani kids. And we were talking recently about these floods that happened in Pakistan and displaced tens of millions of people in Pakistan last summer.
And we could also, you know, we don't have to just for the wars, right? There are so many people who are refugees because of just natural disasters that are happening on our planet. And we're talking floods, and earthquakes, and whatnot, right? And as we said, the climate is changing very fast. And unfortunately, we may expect hurricanes and a lot of that to happen more often.
MW: Yeah. In fact, yes, “Climate Refugees” is a term that is I've heard that's predicted. At some point, we're going to be talking about displacement from natural disasters related to Climate Change more than war. And, yeah, I can totally see how this would be a very, very helpful thing there.
JB: And we need these young people to know that they're going to face it, right? We need to talk to them about, you know, all the challenges they're going to face when they turn adults - like in 10 years or so, right? It's not even when they get to our age, right? When they will be in their 20s. We don't want to make them scared. We want to make them prepared. We want them to have the habits of mind that would allow them to deal with these new and difficult situations.
And when I talk to the kids in Ukraine, for example, I asked them what worries you the most often, you know, besides the war? They tell me the ecological situation in Ukraine, because all the bombs, they leave heavy metal in the fields. And both Ukrainian kids and Turkish kids, when I teach them and when we talk about the war, they start crying because lots of dolphins, dead dolphins, are washed on the shores of the Black Sea because of the military ships, they're using sonars. And the sonar destroys the years of dolphins, and the dolphins they just died from it.
- 10 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
MW: Yes war is terrible. It’s the worst anthropogenic problem there is. Oh, right about by now, this is... I think I could use some of that - the hope and inspiration there, because just thinking about this is just... Ah, how fortunate are we who don't have to deal with that?
JB: Yeah, I think our only hope - not just for people in Ukraine, that's understandable, but just on this planet – our only hope is children. And we really need to start thinking of how we want to educate them. What are the most important things we want them to understand? What are the most important skills we want them to have?
Not just in terms of employability, because I know lots of people are really focused on employability and success. But we cannot do it anymore. We cannot continue with that anymore. We actually need to start teaching the kids to focus on the health of the planet, on the health of civilizations, and our survival as a civilization. We're there already.
And it doesn't mean that everything can go bad. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that, if we don't do that, then we're in trouble. We're becoming very powerful, very fast. We're moving more sand across the planet, for example, than any natural cataclysms taken together. We have all this power, now we need to get some wisdom.
MW: Very good point. In fact, I feel like I've heard that quote somewhere, our weapons outgrew or wisdom. I think Einstein said something like that. Because if you just coined that, we need to get it down! Yes, I mean, you know, it happens. People say brilliant things all the time without really planning it. And it's like, “Okay, get it down, get it down!”
In fact, Dr. Sian Proctor, I quote her on this all the time. What she said was “Solving for space solves for Earth.” So all these initiatives, all this talk about, you know, the future, our future in space - which is going to be happening, really. It's not a question of if it's going to be happening. There's all these opportunities for addressing Earth's problems because of what we do in space. And that's always been the way of it. The only reason we're aware of the environmental problems we have is because of all that Earth observation.
JB: I haven’t heard it, but this is a perfect quote. And the kids asked me, some kids asked me, “Why do we focus on on space instead of focusing on Earth?” You know. And I show them like, “Let’s look around, just look around. You're using your phone right now for your classes. You're using a satellite internet,” because they have been struggling in Ukraine. This is the only reason they have internet right now. “You're using weather satellites. You're using GPS.” It all wouldn't be possible without the space exploration, right? Space industry. People don't even know what lots of inventions around them came from. And they actually came from a space in just in space explained.
- 11 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
MW: Yes. I love getting that question, too. Well, I don't exactly love it because it's way too common. But over the years, I've developed a few ready-made answers. And that's exactly right, yeah. “Look around you. Look at all the ways your life has been improved by research so far. Now, why do you think that about space?
Why, why that? Why not military spending? Right? How much do we spend every single year on making things that kill people? And how's that helped us? Or how much money do we spend – like, we're in the middle of a climate crisis - why are we still giving trillions of dollars to global petrochemical industries, and to make sure that they can still make money? Why are we doing that? So you get that question, too, right?
JB: Absolutely. And I think it's more comes from parents than from, from children.
MW: It is good to address that, because people really do need to know that space advocacy is probably one of the best, most beneficial things around and it's got a really good cost benefit ratio, better than most things.
JB: I also remind them that Earth is actually a planet. And if we learn more about the planets, we actually learn more about our own planet too, and that can help us a lot, right?
MW: Yeah! I mean, good point. Earth is in space.
JB: Yes, Earth is in space. You can’t just separate and take it out!
MW: Yes, it's not like, “This is here, and all that's there, and we don't need to worry about that.” It's like, we're in it. We're moving through it. We're on a spaceship, for crying out loud. Yeah, I know.
JB: This dichotomy, lots of people still have this dichotomy. Like, Earth is by itself, space is by itself. It's one thing. And this is one of the things I'm actually trying to show the kids – how much we actually are affected by space and how do celestial objects actually interact.
They don’t know, they kind of see each planet or each moon as a thing in its own, right? And when I talk to them about the volcanoes of Io – actually sending up all this dust and smoke being captured by the magnetic field of Jupiter, creating auroras on Jupiter and creating massive heat waves in the atmosphere of Jupiter. The volcanoes on one celestial objects creating the change of temperature in another celestial object.
This is such an open-minded experience for the kids. And then it tells them, “Well, let's look at our old planet right now. We're actually really affected by the Sun. And we're really actually affected by the Moon. We really need to study that. If you want, if you care about your own planet, you need to know what's going on in space.”
- 12 - Transcribed by https://otter.ai
MW: Oh, yeah. Those are good. Do you mind If I borrow some of those, too? Because yeah, how it interacts. Interacting with the Sun in the Moon. Holy, yes. You know the tides. Where do you think that comes from? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And that whole thing, the Karman Line, oh, that's just totally arbitrary, frankly. Right. Like the going from our atmosphere to space is actually a really, really big, huge fuzzy line. There's no thin line, then boom, you're there. Right?
JB: Yeah, I also talk with the kids about the space debris. I tell them. When we talk about why it's important to be responsible about what you're doing in space... Most of the people don't know that much about the Kessler Syndrome, about the chain reaction that happens in space if a rocket or a satellite is hit by another one. They don't know what happens if you explode the satellite and some countries do in space. And I explained to them why space wars on a low orbit means that we are going to trap ourselves on this planet forever.
MW: Thank you for saying that. At some point, I want to do an episode on the Kessler Syndrome, space debris and why that's such a big deal. This could go on.
JB: We really need to get people on that, right?
MW: Yeah, I think at this point there, I'm gonna have to have you back for another episode, because I feel like we could keep talking. But well, thank you so much for coming on. And I wish you the best of luck with your efforts, I can't think of something that is more worthwhile and worthy and beneficial, especially to people who needed the most people who are caught in war zones and who are refugees for one reason or another. And I do hope that similar initiatives,,, I’d like to see millions of projects like this going on in the future.
JB: There are millions of children who are affected. So the more, the better. Thank you so much
MW: Well, thank you so much. All right. And I'll be in touch. And in the meantime, be sure to check out Julia Brodsky at Art of Inquiry dot net and Earthlings Hub dot org. And while you're checking out their website, consider making a donation to help fund our efforts. The same goes for educational materials such as books on astronomy and astrophysics and/or telescopes. You have any of these lying around? Don’t hesitate to donate them! You’ll be giving the gift of inspiration and hope where it’s needed the most.
Join me again soon for more episodes of Stories from Space. I'm your host, Matt Williams.