A guest post from one of our team mates
Children are both the makers and the markers of healthy, sustainable societies. According to UNICEF, children represent one third of the world’s population, in today’s numbers, that would be approximately, 2.2 billion children and they represent a significant factor for the future development of the society on a planetary scale.
Sustainability is the ability to exist constantly. Sustainability has a lot of definitions, but, regarding humanity, it all comes to one thing, the ability to thrive and advance as a race, species. We as humans are a race that leans towards technology. We see the technology as an answer and a solution to sustainability. Therefore, we should motivate and educate our legacy to follow that path. There are many possibilities and ways to use technology to achieve and maintain a sustainable society, but we will consider only one of them.
Space exploration is one possible tool that might allow humanity to achieve and maintain a sustainable society. We are very much dependent on resources that might and eventually will be drained, exhausted on our beloved planet. The only other place to find resources is the vast space. We need engineers in order to explore and promote space exploration, we should encourage our legacy to follow that path. Motivation and encouragement is not always easy when it comes to young minds. Children learn and explore through play. Their curiosity is limitless, pure and naïve.
There are many tools that will help us, adults, to guide the young engineers, explorers and innovators. Most of them are simple, free and at hand. Read to them, talk to them and tell them about the planets, moons, stars. Make paper rockets, tell them a story about Titan, Saturn’s moon, guide them on a journey that will feed their imagination.
Hands-on learning is another way. Children love to create and use their hands. Young and gifted makers and engineers could play with different building block and create spaceships and orbital stations.
Only by building they can build the confidence to continue exploring. As adults, we need to give an example, we need to teach them to never give up, learn every day and keep looking into the future. So, to summarize, how do we get more young space explorers? By letting them explore the universe using their imagination.
Bojan Seirovski, MEng.
https://www.unicef.org/media/media_69712.html
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL