Sciencey Heroes For Young Children?

An anonymous reader writes "Unhappy that all his friends have heroes he knows nothing about (they've all chosen hockey players — actually a hockey player: Sidney Crosby), my eight-year-old son asked me if I would find him a 'cool hero.' When pressed to define 'cool,' he very earnestly gave me this list of acceptable professions: 'Astronauts, explorers, divers, scientists, and pilots.' A second and only slightly less worthy tier of occupations includes 'inventors, meteorologists, and airplane designers.' To be eligible for hero status, an individual must be (1) accomplished in one of these fields, (2) reasonably young (it pains me to report that Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, NASA's youngest astronaut and now just 31, barely makes the cut), and, critically to my naive son's way of thinking, (3) respected by third graders nationwide. Ignoring that last criterion, or not, what heroes would you suggest from the sciences as people whose lives and accomplishments would be compelling to an eight-year-old mind?"

Comments

Carl Sagan

[Ninja Programmer]

There is no other.

Re:Carl Sagan

[syousef]

There is no other.

Be careful with role models. By all accounts he was a brilliant science popularizer and a better than average scientist. But he was also petty and arrogant and thought a lot of himself and treated women badly. Read one of the biographies. I think that is what you should teach kids - that even their heroes and role models may be exemplary in one or more areas of life without being perfect or even acceptably good in other areas. Therefore only emulate the good, and don't be disheartened when you learn about the bad.

That said every child should watch COSMOS at least once and read a few of his books. Pale Blue Dot and Demon Haunted World would be my recommendations (though I'm sure some of the more religious types will disagree with the latter).

Who needs a hero?

[Anonymous Coward]

You kid seems smart. Maybe ask why he feels the need to have a hero? And why this hero needs to pass some sort of test of being 'accepted by your kids peers' ?
I understand the need for kids to fit in somehow, but maybe he can transcend this.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist

[Allyoop]

Neil deGrasse Tyson I wish I read his book "The Universe Down to Earth" when I was in grade 9. I think it would have greatly shaped my school pathway for a 'real' science career. http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/

what?

[X_Bones]

no love for the safe-crackin', bongo-playin', Challenger-investigatin' Richard Feynman?

Wile E. Coyote

[martin-boundary]

My science hero is Wile E. Coyote. He's the reason I became a scientist in the first place. As a kid, I had always been very impressed by how even the simplest scientific approach would always allow Wile E. to capture all those pesky Road Runners with ease.

I can honestly say that without him as a role model, I would never have become a physicist or discovered how to paint the dimensional portal which brought me to this world years ago.

Unfortunately, the rules of physics seem to be slightly different here for some reason, and I have been stranded ever since. Oh well...

NIKOLA TESLA

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject-line...

APK

P.S.=> He's a PRIME EXAMPLE of that "once in a generation mind"... apk

Re:Mark Zuckerberg

[aevan]

He wanted heroes, not super villains.

Re:Here's a few

[Martin Blank]

The willingness to revisit myths is a hallmark of the scientific process, though. They have a hypothesis -- the myth -- and collect initial evidence to determine a certain level of plausibility. They then move to large-scale experiments. In some cases, their experiments disprove the hypothesis. However, upon peer review (using the term loosely), problems with their experiments may be pointed out, and they revise and rerun the experiment. Sometimes the original results are overturned, and they can, to some degree, form a theory.

The Mythbusters are the first to claim that what they do is more entertainment than science. You just don't often hear things like "Jamie wants big boom" coming from real scientists. But normal people learn from their abbreviated process anyway, as you said, and that's what is important right now.

Another Brian

[Anonymous Coward]

How about another Brian, a bona fide rock star (i.e. older than most people on /.) and also astrophysicist. Took a detour from his PhD work to play lead guitar for the British rock band Queen. Finally finished his PhD in 2007. Is one step from away from knighthood.

Re:Find a hero for me, daddy?

[camperdave]

I thought it was a parent's job to hunt around for acceptable role models for their kids.

Gee! I always thought it was a parent's job to *BE* an acceptable role model for their kids.

Re:Galois

[kumanopuusan]

he was killed in a sword fight

That explains why he lost, since Galois died of a gunshot wound.