Monday, July 28, 2008

Why We Need Better Science (and History) Education

One thing my son and I do periodically is watch tv series together during dinner. We've watched Earth 2, tried to get through Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and are currently almost through with the first season of SeaQuest DSV. It's one of our bonding rituals. I cook dinner, and he sets the tv trays and gets the appropriate dvd ready.

While at Sam's Club today I saw a set for a series I'd never before heard of, Space: Above And Beyond. It looks just cheesy enough to garner our attention, so I decided to read the summary on the back.

"It's the year 2063. After 150 years of deep space exploration, the people of Earth feel certain they are alone in the universe..."

Deep space exploration since 1913? *sigh*

8 comments:

Fritz J. said...

Now Darren, didn't you know that the actual space flights all took place in the teens, and that news of them only leaked out in the sixties? All those rocket launches from Cape Kennedy were only to cover up that we had discovered intelligent life on the moon and our government was afraid that news would frighten us. That way they could show those pictures (all made in Hollywood studios) of the moon landing and convince us that the moon is uninhabited. The moon flights were also staged as a means of quieting the rumors about Roswell. You will have to hand it to our government for killing two birds with one space program. ;-D

Anonymous said...

It is set in an alternate universe in which space flight did occur in the early years of the century.

KauaiMark said...

Outcome based math skills of using the lattice method of math problem solving -- like addition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPWLauF3-8I

Babbie said...

You know this isn't a science or history problem! It's a math problem.

Unknown said...

I remember that series. It was a stinker, but so was Earth 2 (I had successfully forgotten it, until you mentioned it).

Darren said...

Loved Earth 2! I was bummed when it didn't come back for a 2nd season. At least with that one "flash-forward" episode we know Uly turned out ok :-)

Anonymous said...

"Now Darren, didn't you know that the actual space flights all took place in the teens, and that news of them only leaked out in the sixties?"

*WHAT* are you talking about. The space flights were faked (some of the launches were real, of course, but it isn't like they went anywhere!).

As an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuwyY2DzO2I

Sheesh. :-)

-Mark Roulo

Ellen K said...

Our kids are ignorant of their own history. And the dogooders are more concerned about the history of ethnic populations than the history of the nation as a whole. Every year I ask kids "In what century did Pablo Picasso die?" And even with coaching and notes, most of them tag him as a Renaissance artist.