The Pale Blue Dot
Do you remember the Pale Blue Dot Photo?
It is a NASA photo of earth shown as a tiny speck in space. It was taken in 1990 by the Voyager I space probe 3.7 billion miles from earth.
Carl Sagan, the scientist, suggested NASA engineers turn Voyager around and take some last minute pictures of earth. As a result, we have the photo earth seen as a spec in space. And then, he talked about that Blue Dot, the only home we have.
Maya Angelou, the poet, wrote a poem about the Pale Blue Dot photo. She named the poem A Brave and Startling Truth. She recited her poem at the United Nation’s 50th anniversary. Her poem was sent into space on the Orion probe in Dec 2014.
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou was the author of over 30 best selling books during her life. She is perhaps most well known for her book I Know-Why-Caged-Bird-Sings.
She was not only a poet, but she was a civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, books of essays and poems, and plays, movies and television shows.
I valued greatly listening to her talk and recite her poetry.
On April 6, 2015, NASA accepted a gift from Maya Angelou’s great grand children. The gift was beautiful plaque that included part of her writings that were aboard the Orion Spacecraft in December, 2014.
Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan was an astronomer and astrophysicist and perhaps, most importanly, a popularizer of science. His work influenced my work as a science educator. As a result I attempted to integrate his ideas into my university teaching.
He was interested in the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI). He wrote scientific papers, as well as many popular science books, and produced one of the most widely watch TV programs about science, Cosmos. More than 500 million people have seen the series.
He received numerous awards during his career.
Science and Art
The Pale Blue Dot brought Maya Angelou and Carl Sagan together. They independently used the same experience to express their ideas through prose and poetry. If you watched the videos of Angelou and Sagan, you observe this.
Science and Art are integral to this blog. In the same vein, the name of this blog is The Art of Teaching Science. The name of the blog comes from the title of my book, The Art of Teaching Science published in 2005 and 2009.
If you want to learn more about art and science, you might check out my guide on artistry. As I see it, the way we teach is the result of reflection, and many years of practice and conversation with students and colleagues. The guide on artistry is based on a humanistic philosophy that developed over many years of teaching.
brainpickings
Finally, I want give credit for what prompted me to write this post. One of the blogs that I subscribe to is Brainpickings by Maria Popova. It’s an amazing blog. Maria Popova is a brilliant and gifted writer. She publishes her blog each Sunday as a digest of the weeks stories and ideas. However, during the mid-week, she reaches into her extensive archives. Her archive this week was about the Pale Blue Dot and Maya Angelou’s poem. I recommend her blog to you, and you can subscribe here or click on the photo of Brainpickings.
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