Teaching the moon landings
Mark Wrigley
Disruptive Innovator | Exploring Photography, Physics & Making | Founder of Lazy Photon | Connecting Culture, Physics and Images.
I'd describe myself first, as a physicist. Having a physics degree has put me in a good position for a career in high technology companies, which has been interesting and rewarding. Not to mention living all over the world. Now, in my late career, I have my own company and, as a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, I have an ethos of encouraging others to study STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) subjects.
Throughout school I was one of those kids who was good at both sciences and arts. Not a good combination in 1960s British education. I was destine to be a woodwork teacher. But at Christmas 1968 my attention was caught by Apollo 8, the first mission where humans left Earth orbit and circled the moon returning with the now iconic 'Earthrise' image. I was hooked. The Newtonian mechanics that I was learning at school fitted these space scenarios exactly and I felt the need to record what was happening. My knowledge of photography, audio and electronics expanded as I devised ways to film and record sound from the family television set and I'd later progress to using an 8mm movie camera with high speed black and white film.
I still have much of the material that I recorded and it will form the centre-piece of an exhibition called "Hello Universe" which opens and Britain's National Science and Media Museum in July 2019 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Your can find out more about that project here: https//:1201alarm.org
On Monday (8th July 2019) I'll be running educations sessions for Year 10 (15 year old) students at the Science and Media Museum. I have 30 minutes (in repeated sessions) to enthuse these kids into science and STEM subjects and careers. My props are a Styrofoam Earth and moon, a Lego Saturn V with Lunar Module and Command and Service Module as well as a hammer and feather to replicate Apollo 15's gravity demonstration. There will of course be plenty of videos hooked together in a PowerPoint. I've learned a lot preparing for these talks, least of all, the enthusiasm of my friends at Otley Maker Space (near Leeds, U.K) when I walk in with a Saturn V Lego kit under my arm!
Thanks Otley Maker Space?