Q: What do the Oort Cloud, the Kuiper Belt, and the dwarf-planet Sedna have in common with the accretion disc and event horizon of a black hole?

A: They’re all things that I first learned about through my 7-year-old son’s hobby of watching astronomy movies on the Internet.

Back when Nico first learned to navigate around YouTube and other sites with science videos, I was worried about what he might stumble onto. As we discussed here, he was confused by a weird conspiracy theory movie that looked like a science movie. But that problem turned out to be a lot less difficult to handle than I’d anticipated. » Continue reading “Nico’s favorite astronomy movies on the Internet!”

The latest two kids’ films we’ve seen at our house are Wall-E and Curious George. Wide-distribution children’s films generally can’t have a message that’s too edgy (as I mentioned in my post about morals for children in “Cars” and “Happy Feet”), so they can give us an idea of what sorts of ideas are squarely in the mainstream.

In that light, Wall-E’s premise — that future humans had rendered the surface of the Earth unfit for human habitation — kind of surprised me. Maybe I’ve been reading too many conservative blogs, but I thought there were still enough climate-change deniers to out there to make this sort of thing a touchy subject. Perhaps not. » Continue reading “What’s mainstream now? Notes on Wall-E and Curious George”

It’s true that kids are born atheists. In my experience so far, there’s no point when religion naturally comes up (in a child’s development) unless the parents or the community force the issue.

There’s a certain bliss in allowing my kids to remain ignorant of the existence of religion, but they’re going to hear about it from their friends eventually. And I’ve read lots of personal accounts of people whose parents just never really taught them anything about religion either way. Some of these folks — when they finally encounter religion — are astonished to discover that people can really believe such stories are true and real. Others are enchanted by religion (or other woo ) when they first encounter it as teen or adult. So, ultimately, I feel like it’s something I should talk to my kids about in the home.

So far I haven’t fared so well. We taught them a little about their Catholic heritage while visiting their great aunt, a nun, in Lourdes, but (as you’ll see if you read that story ), I balked when faced with trying to explain Jesus to them. More recently, I expected the subject would come up while visiting my own Mormon and Christian family this past summer, but it didn’t. On some level, our situation seems more ideal than Laurie T.’s (where religion comes up in school ), but, on the other hand, it sounds nice to have some natural context (like in Laurie T and LSG’s case ) for the child to bring the subject up.

Anyway, all of that is just background to explain how the subject of Jesus finally came up in our house! » Continue reading “I’ve finally introduced my kids to Jesus!!”

lead elder: Harmless? It is this kind of backsliding that has brought the scarcity upon us!
a foreign penguin: Excuse me smiley, could you speak plain penguin please?
Mumble: He thinks the food shortage has something to do with me.
lead elder: Do you not understand that we can only survive here when we are in harmony? And when you and your foreign friends lead us into your easy ways you offend the Great Guin — you invite Him to withhold His bounty!
an elder: He rules the seasons.
an elder: He giveth and He can taketh away.
Mumble: Wait a minute — happy feet can’t cause a famine.
an elder: If that kind of pagan display didn’t cause it, then what did?
Mumble: I think it comes from outside — from way beyond the ice. There are things out there we don’t understand.
foreign penguins: Mysteries! Mind-boggling mysteries! Mystic beings!
Mumble: Yeah, aliens. I’ve heard they’re smart.
an elder: He’s insane!
Mumble: No, they might be smarter than all of us — who knows?

an elder: He drove the fish away, and now he’s ranting this rubbish. » Continue reading “Morals for children in “Cars” and “Happy Feet””