This story from Vision Australia delighted me. Several young clients, 8-12 years old, prepared questions and had the chance to interview a real astronaut, Mike Fossum, about his life and work in space as he circled the earth at 27,000km per hour on board the International Space Station.
What an amazing, interactive science and technology lesson! The complete audio of the interview is available on Vision Australia’s site, along with background information about all the hard work involved in making it happen. For example, the students only had nine minutes to ask their questions because they were communicating with the space station via relay, so they had to time it precisely to catch the station while it traveled from horizon to horizon.
As national coordinator Paul Paradigm said to the young “space cadets”: “Don’t let having a vision impairment stop you from aiming high. You’re about to ask questions of an astronaut – keep aiming that high and keep asking questions and who knows where you might end up.”