Our school system has an event we call Future Link. Seventh grade students come to the local community college and participate in conversations with scientists and botanists and engineers; and they think about what they want to do as an adult. Every speaker has the same message: People and companies are doing amazing things and you can be part of this world of discovery if you work hard in school and learn as much as you can.
I listened to a talk about the building of the James Webb Space Telescope and was amazed by the scope of the project. Over 1000 people from 17 countries have been working on the design and building of this telescope. Eighteen specially designed mirrors will be used. The telescope is so big that it can't fit in the spaceship, so it had to be designed to fold in sections and then to unfold once it got into space. Huge problems had to be solved, designed, and built.
I was particularly impressed with the list of engineering fields that were employed by the team that build this telescope. All sorts of specialties and specialists were needed to work together to build this amazing product. Some of the seventh grade students in today's classrooms will one day work with the James Webb Space Telescope on its 5 to 10 year mission to identify stars and galaxies and planets and black holes that we (today) don't even know exist.
It's amazing and it all starts in school. Math, Science, Technology, Coding, English, Foreign Languages; everything that are students learn today will one day be used to do amazing things. I can't wait to see their future.
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