Science Literacy Week 2014

We are all natural scientists.  Our curiosity and thirst to discover new things leads us to question everything as children, and experiment ourselves to find out more.  It is this inquisitiveness that has allowed us to develop instruments to see microscopic organisms, to develop tools to communicate around the world, and to discover our place in the cosmos among many other extraordinary feats.  To quote Kurt Vonnegut, science is magic that works. 

            Science literacy week is a city wide effort to provide access to some of the best science communicators of all time.  Through book displays, links to online content, documentary screenings and lecture series, the aim is to showcase how captivating science really is.    The science literacy week’s goal is to give people the opportunity to marvel at the discoveries and developments of the last few centuries of scientific thought.

            My hope is to bring people who have never thought about science before to come learn something new and exciting – as well as giving those who read and watch science regularly the chance to look at things in a different way.  I think Carl Sagan, the great science communicator said it best, as he always seemed to:

            “Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species. I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries”

I hope you enjoy the science literacy week and learn a lot, and if you have any comments, questions, or want to help make the event even bigger next year please let me know at jessehhildebrand@gmail.com!