By: Peter Solomon
The Race to the Big Bang (available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble) was published in May 2021. It is the sequel to The Stardust Mystery (available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble). Both books together with companion videos and short stories were created as part of a National Science Foundation project. The fictional science adventures teach non-fiction science to children 8 to 14 years old. It also tied for first place for best STEM book in the Purple Dragonfly Children’s Book Awards announced in July 2021.
My new science adventure book
The Race to the Big Bang story takes place during the pandemic. The four Cosmic Kids (Lizzy, Neddy, Milo and VC) and coach Grandpa form a new team, the Cosmic Explorers, with two new coaches and their friends Jackson and Johari. Neddy invites her friend Richie to join them too. The seven characters use their imaginations to crate entertaining Pandemic Pastimes to cope with the disruption to their lives. They enter a new contest in which they use a Virtual World to time-, space-, and size-change travel in the Cosmic Egg as they race to be the first team to accomplish all the goals and arrive at the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.
Along the way to the Big Bang, they discover unusual things on earth, in the solar system and in the universe. They help prove the Big Bang theory by measuring the distance to a nearby galaxy. They prove Albert Einstein’s Twin Paradox with Lizzy’s long solo round trip voyage to our closest star. She returns, after four years of travel, to discover that her younger sister Neddy, who stayed behind, is now her older sister. Neddy loves that.
To create a space station at seven billion years ago, they employ a planet that they have found by adding the events that made Planet Earth habitable. The add water by redirecting comets to hit their planet, they create an oxygen atmosphere using cyanobacteria brought from Earth, and they plant vegetation for food from seeds also from earth. Their brilliant idea has some unintended consequences that are wonderful, awful, and then wonderful again. They have accidently provided a dramatic example of the Survival of the Fittest principal of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.
Videos about the Coronavirus and the revolutionary mRNA vaccines
The Cosmic Explorers end their adventures by using the virtual world to make two videos to teach other kids about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic and the revolutionary genetic engineered mRNA vaccines. The videos are posted on the STARDUST MYSTERY YouTube Channel.
With this new project, we learn some interesting biology about how our body’s cells are factories that can fabricate substances based on pieces of genetic codes. The virus makes use of that function to make us sick. The vaccine uses it to make us immune to the virus.
In Animated Coronavirus Story for Kids 1: How Grandpa Got COVID-19, they follow the virus inhaled by Grandpa to see how it reproduces to make him sick. They watch as the virus hijacks his mucus cell’s factories to make lots of copies. They follow the virus copies to Grandpa’s lungs where they cause pneumonia.
In the video, Explaining COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines: An Animated Story for Kids, our characters follow the vaccine into a human body to explore how it utilizes our bodies’ cell factories to create immunity. Both videos use simple terms to explain the infection and how the vaccine works.
A teachable moment
The breakthrough mRNA vaccines are a revolutionary advance in science and medicine. They are a huge positive that contrasts with the negatives of the pandemic. The vaccines present a teachable moment for everyone to learn about the advance that may bring us cancer immunity and the ability to edit our own species’ evolution.
In addition to the book and videos, my company has created an online LEARNING PAGE that delivers videos, short stories, and lessons to teach young people about the first genetically engineered vaccine, the mRNA vaccine for COVID-19. As stated by the co-founder of Moderna, one of the mRNA vaccine developers:
“There was a sudden shift in the evolutionary balance between what human technology can do and what viruses can do. We may never have a pandemic again.”
This advance in science and medicine is an essential teachable moment to learn about a technology that will change the future.
Our Covid-19 LEARNING PAGE includes eight illustrated short stories told by our characters. There are three stories that explain how our bodies’ cell factories work:
1. How they normally produce needed substances
2. how they are hijacked by the COVID-19 coronavirus to produce disease
3. How they are utilized by the mRNA vaccines to produce the coronavirus spike proteins that induce immunity.
The Billion Year Old Scissors story explains the fascinating history of the CRISPR gene-editing tools. The stories and videos will allow students to learn about the genetic code, DNA, cell biology, our cell’s factories, viruses, bacteria, RNA, and messenger RNA. The COVID-19 Coronavirus and other LEARNING PAGES are on the Educators tab of TheStardustMystery.com website.
The Covid-19 Coronavirus LEARNING PAGE is one product of The Stardust Mystery Project, funded in part by grants from the National Science Foundation (See Award #1738291), Connecticut Innovations Inc, and two PPP loans. Its objective is to provide a good way for children to learn science through transmedia storytelling.
The stories are told by seven multi-ethnic young characters in book, video, video game and short story formats. A reviewer of The Stardust Mystery book confirmed the effectiveness of having the stories told by young characters: “I love reading about science but what makes it even better is reading about kids my age doing science.”
The young male and female Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic characters provide good role models for a diverse audience of students. Three other LEARNING PAGES cover different science topics.
Buy it!
Buy a copy of The Race to the Big Bang here, and help support local bookstores! This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.
Pin it!
