Image by GeekDad Kevin Makice
This post was written in collaboration with Daniela Hernandez at Wired Science.
“At least in Star Wars‘ spaceships, they can walk.” I heard an 8-year-old utter that while I attempted to explain the effects of reduced gravity on the International Space Station. Well, the kid had a point, but still, Star Wars is not real. It’s science fiction. Yet it was clear which one he and his classmates preferred.
I was surprised. If someone had asked me 20 years ago what was cooler – walking or flying (ok, floating) in space, I would have chosen the latter. I thought this might have been an isolated incident, but on a separate occasion another youngster declared that rockets were not as cool as an X-wing Starfighter.
I love to work with kids and teach them cool stuff about engineering and science. They are much smarter than adults and don’t try to manage my expectations. And as the border between science and sci-fi gets thinner, I expected kids to get more excited about real science than about the “imaginary” world of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and R2-D2.
So I am left with an open question: Why might science fiction be winning the race?
Maybe we, as a “smart” society, did not make enough progress just yet. After all, our everyday cars still don’t fly and the kids might not be as patient as we are.
Is it a sign that schools and educators – myself included – are not really engaging students in science, technology, engineering and math? Or do kids simply like to imagine the seemingly impossible? (Is this necessarily a bad thing?)
Are stories set in places that defy the laws of physics more interesting than the stories of scientists spending countless nights in the lab? (Are adults secretly thinking the same, but are too ashamed to admit it publicly? Come on, be honest!)
When you don’t have the answer, the best thing is to ask someone, which is why I’m posing these questions to the GeekDad Community.
I would love to hear your opinions! Please post your comments – and perhaps your kids’ – in our GeekDad Forum.
In Max Castera’s post on GeekDad, he wonders — why do kids (and plenty of adults) get more excited about science fiction than they do actual science? Read the post, then give us your opinions here.
I think one likely reason is that Sci-Fi is, mostly, also fantasy. It’s about technology which produces results that are akin to magic, which inspires wonder. As adults, we can look at the current state of technology and science, and know that a person from more than 100 years ago would think we were using magic, but children are growing up with this as commonplace, and so get no sense of wonder out of it.