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My favorite memories from the 8th grade year was all the Spanish classes I went to. Our class was pretty crazy but it was fun.

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There is a memory that I wanted to share from 7th grade. It was science class and we were in a unit on microorganisms. When I first looked into the microscope, I was amazed. It was incredible things from a different perspective, it was like peering into another world. Even today, this I still sometimes think about it.

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One of my favorite memories from my 8th grade year was the DC trip. It was very fun getting to hang out with friends far away from home. We all had a really great time and it was very cool to see the nations capital.

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Some of my favorite memories were field trips, civil war day and field day. They were really fun and probably a recap of the 2 years a Washburne. by warren

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Masks, by Shel Silverstein

She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through.
Then passed right by–
And never knew.

I chose this poem for my contribution to the Golden Record because I feel like this poem embodies what people are. Although we may be the most advanced species in the universe, we can make mistakes too. The first time I read this poem I was in seventh grade in Ms. Coyne’s class. This poem has just always been their and its many meanings have helped me get through Washburne.

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Some of my favorite memories were on field trips, and one in particular was at the botanic gardens. I took lots of photos there and got to spend time looking around the gardens with some of my friends. I also enjoyed not having the same routine as a school day, which was fun to experience.

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My favorite memories from Washburne were the field trips.
Specifically the field trip to the Shakespear play. it was fun going to Navy pier with classmates.

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My favorite memories from 7th and 8th grade are the field trips we went on and 7th grade field day. These are my favorite memories because they were days to take a break from the average school day. It allowed us to be active, have fun, and spend time together as a team.

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My favorite memories were all of the field trips we went on. It was fun to take a day off of school and go to cool places with friends. It was also fun to learn about the different places we went to and how we had fun assignments to go with the experience.

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- Van Crocker

The field trip’s we’ve had, to Cantigny, The Shakespeare Theatre, and many others have truly been the highlight of my years at Washburne, as Education outside of a school setting is often very beneficial and fun. Also, the waffles I had at a diner we went to a few months ago still resonate within me.

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Among the reasons why I have made such fond memories at Carleton Washburne is its Jazz Band. I have not only made new friends there, but I have also learned the value of hard work, team effort, and the true power of music, which have helped make the experience truly unforgettable.

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Out of everything we’ve done this year my favorite memory is the D.C. trip. It was a fun weekend where we got to be with our friends all day and see lots of interesting things.

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One of my favorite memories was the D.C. trip, but specifically being part of the wreath laying. It was nice representing our school in our nation’s capital.

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One of my favorite memories is going on field trips because it was really fun to hang out with my friends who I didn’t have many classes with.

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-Nathaniel

My favorite memories from school were going on field trips because it was always a nice break from doing work but unlike days off we could still see all of our friends that we might not have been able to see if we weren’t at school

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One of my favorite memories of seventh and eighth grade was participating in the Washburne Debate team. This was a great experience that Washburne offered. The club itself was very fun and exciting! The Washburne Debate team also represents the teamwork and perseverance that Washburne holds. In general, Carleton Washburne has given me several experiences that I will carry the rest of my life, and that have changed me as a person.

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My favorite memories where going on field trips because they where a break from school but you still learned stuff while having fun because you got to see new things and if they weren’t new thing that where diffrent from what you did every day here is one example of a field trip the botanic gardens

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I found it interesting that they put music on the golden record, but I think it is a good idea. When they mentioned that I found myself thinking about all the stupid, but really popular song from though out the years and what if those were on there. The song that came to mind from my time at washburne was Old Town Road by Lil Nas X. This isn’t my favorite song by any means, but there were weeks when this was all I heard though out the halls and I think it was stuck in everyone’s heads for weeks so this is my choice.

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Something that I enjoyed this year was going on field trips. Because it gave me a break from school and they were mostly fun. And also the field trips were a fun time to hangout with friends and interact with the teachers. All in all the field trips were my favorite memory.

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My favorite memories were the field trips because we could take a day off regular school work and go visit some place in a different scenery. This was fun because it was always something different then our average classroom. These field trips we took at Washburne were very fun and I cant wait to go on more new field trips in high school.

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I really enjoyed all of the field trips at Washburne. These field trips were a fun break from the classroom and I really enjoyed all the activities we did and I am excited for more at New Trier.

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Throughout the seventh and eighth grade years, my favorite memories are all of the field trips. This is because you could always feel the energy around you, and I was always able to mess around with my friends. Overall, it has been an amazing two years at Washburne, and I’m looking forward to New Trier.

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I chose these pictures of places I have been because they represent the different climates on earth.

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One of my favorite memories was probably going on field trips like the botanic gardens. The reason for that is because it was so fun to just walk around a cool place like the botanic gardens with your friends and it’s really calming in a way also. Another cool thing about field trips is that sometimes you get to see a cool/fun side of a teacher you never knew about.

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My favorite memory was the Washington DC trip.  It was a perfect mix of learning and fun.  It was so much fun walking around the historic city and seeing many different landmarks.  It was also fun to get back to the hotel and swim and play that game with the ball in pool.  Overall it was an amazing experience and I am so glad we were able to go.

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One of my favorite memories from eighth grade was the DC trip. I learned a lot and made many amazing memories I’ll never forget.

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The botanical gardens was one of my favorite memories because it was a fun field trip, and the school incorporated learning into the field trip. Basically it was a fun learning experience, but more fun than learning. This photo is of my favorite bonsai tree that they had this year.

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My favorite memory from Washburne, was definitely going to Washington DC. I learnt a lot, but still had a lot of fun. And I’m very happy that we got the chance to go, because some schools had to cancel.

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My favorite memories from 7th and 8th grade were the field trips and 7th grade field day!

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My favorite washburne memory was when we went fmsc. It was really fun because it not only did it allow us to help those in need, it was also really fun working on teambuidling skills!

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The DC trip might’ve been my favorite part of eighth grade! Such a trip to remember!

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My favorite washburne memory was the DC trip this year. I thought it was really fun to spend time with my friends and I learned a lot.

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The best memories from Washburne were all field trips and fun activities with my friends. It was special because it showed that school can be very fun and gives us fond memories. Activities such as civil war day and field day are full of fun and we could enjoy ourselves.

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My favorite memory was all the field trips we went on throughout 7th and 8th grade. even though I might have gotten in trouble for running in the mall. it was still fun.

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this is a photo taken on navy pier. It was super fun to be able to hang out on a field trip in a place that we wouldn't normally go on our own.

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Dc was one of my favorite memories and I’m so glad we got to go. It was very fun but we still got to see tons of stuff and just be with our friends.

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My favorite memory was the trip to DC. We got to see a ton of cool stuff and it was awesome to experience that with my friends. There were so many things that I will always remember on that trip, and I am happy we got to go before everything got shut down.

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Leo G memory
My favorite memory was the D.C. trip. It was really fun to have a big school trip like that, and I learned a lot.

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My favorite memory from my time at Washburne was the DC Trip. It was so much fun because it got me closer to some of my friends and it’s something I never would have experienced. Even though no one really likes to go to school everyday it really is great and Washburne has made it a lot of fun. It’s like in the Office finale when Darryl said “Everyday when I came to work, all I wanted to do was leave. So why in the world does it feel so hard to leave right now.”

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One of my favorite memories was the DC trip. A Lot of bad things happened to me but it was still really fun! You guys know I filmed the whole thing but I never edited it because of my arm and stuff. I decided to edit the footage today and I would really appreciate it if you guys could take a look. I miss you guys and really want to see you! Thank you for the memories! 🥺

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Dogs have been humans best friend for centuries

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Dogs have been humans best friend for centuries

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What is very special about planet earth is that 2 species can have a loving relationship.

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My favorite memory was when we went to Navy pier in seventh grade and played tag all around. It was really fun because we used all of navy pier and and tons of fun.

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One of my favorite memories from 7th and 8th grade was when we went to the shakespeare play as well as Navy Pier because I got to hang out with my friends from other teams as well as my friends from Imagine. I also liked that field trip because we were not learning the entire field trip, like what we have done in the past.

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One of my favorite memories at Washburne was when my grandma brought Chick-fil-A to school for the “lunch bunch”. I won’t forget the crazy things that happened with these people at this table. I can’t forget the bake off and Mr. Chan eating with us. It was honestly so much fun.

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I chose this picture because it reminds me how interesting and fun our day at the art museum was.

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I chose this photo of me and a few of my friends on our 8th grade Washington D.C. tip. I chose to use this photo because the D.C. trip was one of my most favorite memories of 8th grade. I think that this photos important to keep, so that in how every many years it is before someone sees this photo that they know that we got to go on fun trips for school, and that we were able to create happy memories then to last us a life time.

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I think that this picture is a great demonstration of what Washburne has offered us over the years. One of the greatest parts about attending Washburne is all the amazing students and teachers who are incredibly kind and fun to be around. This picture is of me and some of the friends I made because of Washburne. I have had so much fun getting to know each unique individual. To me this picture represents the friendships and happy memories I made during the journey through middle school.

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My favorite 8th grade memory was the DC trip because it was fun being with all of my friends and we learned a lot.

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My favorite memory is when I got in trouble at the mall for running around. It was my favorite memory because I found it funny that I got in trouble for running.
-your favorite Johnny C

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One of my favorite memories was the DC trip where i got to meet and get to know so many people better and i enjoyed exploring and learning about new things. This being my first year in Washburne I wish i could've been here so long ago but this year was one of the best ones yet, and i thank everyone that made it so amazing.

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why this was so helpful to me is because it gave me time to do something fun before class and  it got me focused and ready for science class one how it works is Mr. Cooper finds an animal and asked dose it fart and calls on people until some one gets it right and a sim-miler thing for the  riddles and  for both the person who gets it right gets a lolly pop

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why this was so helpful to me is because it gave me time to do something fun before class and  it got me focused and ready for science class one how it works is Mr. Cooper finds an animal and asked dose it fart and calls on people until some one gets it right and a sim-miler thing for the  riddles and  for both the person who gets it right gets a lolly pop

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My favorite memory of my time at Washburn is the D.C trip. I really enjoyed driving around D.C and getting to talk with my friends.

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My favorite memory was during the D.C. Trip when we went to the Washington Monument. It’s my favorite memory, because this is where the group found out we were staying for an extra night, and also, the D.C. trip was great. During the trip I got to spend a lot of time with friends, and it’s the best experience of my time at Washburne.

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One gross but interesting memory I have from science is definitely when we dissected the frogs in 7th grade. I remember how gross I thought it was at first but it was pretty cool to see.

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My favorite memory this year was going to the state championship in LEGO Robotics with my friends. This was very important to me especially because this was my last year. It was also very special to me because of the impact that that FLL has put on me. By the way this photo was from around three years ago.

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My favorite memory was going on the DC trip because we had so much fun and we even got to stay for an extra night.

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I used this because it show a house to whatever society exists millions of years from now, and because this was a really fun field trip.

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My favorite memory from eighth grade was Washington D.C. It was so fun exploring, taking pictures, and being with friends. Traveling to D.C. was a really fun experience. It is definitely one of my favorite Washburne memories.

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My favorite memory at Washburne was the DC trip and one of the best parts was when we tried on dresses while at the big mall in DC and when we figured out we were staying an extra night.

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one of many of my favorite memories was 7th grade feild day. it was such a fun day and we were all together having the best time!

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I chose this memory because it was fun to go to navy pier and the play and I got to connect with my friends and overall it was great.

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One of my favorite memories and trips was the D.C. trip I took with my closest friends. We visited many buildings that we would recognize the instant we saw them, we saw monuments and important structures that represent America, we saw beautiful places and much more! Eighth grade was one of my most favorite school years because of the fun I’ve had with friends, and the memories I’ve made throughout this year. Here is a photo of me in front of the Washington Monument.

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For my Washburne memory, I chose our team shopping for those families in need. I think it represented us as a team, and was a really fun experience going downtown and shopping before winter break. Also lunch was amazing.

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I chose the navy pier field trip because it reminded me of school and going to public places for fun.

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Lizzie’s favorite Washburn memory was the field trips. I’m so grateful for the places we got to see and things I got to learn in a different atmosphere.

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The quote I chose to share is one from the Theoretical Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, one of the men who worked on developing the Atomic Bomb. I chose this quote because not only does it come from a man at the head of one of the worlds most revolutionary developments, but I also think that it shows how the future is in the hands of the young, and we can change the world if we work together.

“There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.” -J. Robert Oppenheimer

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My favorite memory was the D.C. trip. I had so much fun seeing different things and spending time with my friends that weekend. I would like to remember this because it was such an amazing experience.

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While at Washburne, I have gone on many field trips.  Field trips, Civil War day and Field day have been my favorite Washburne memories.  Part of the Washburne experience is going to museums and taking field trips to learn outside of school.  This photo was taken at the Field Museum on a science field trip.

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I chose this photo I took of a beautiful flower while on our Botanic Gardens field trip. I loved our field trips to the Botanic Gardens. The weather was always so nice, and the flowers always looked so majestic. Plus, I went to the Botanic Gardens pretty much every year while attending the Winnetka Public Schools. So, it will always be a destination that reminds me of the fun times I had in elementary and middle school. Overall, I chose this photo because it reminds me of the fun opportunities Washburne (and my prior schools in District 36) have given me.

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This was my favorite memory, it is me and my friends after a basketball game

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My favorite memory from Washburne was going to Cantigny and taking the picture with everyone on the tank. Unfortunately, I don’t have the picture. Unlucky.

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This was during the FLL regional tournament, it was our first year. It was really fun and we were all surprised when we made it to the state tournaments.

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This was the first time Pursuit people were doing a walkathon, in 2019, and it was pouring and freezing. It may not be a great memory but it was pretty memorable (plus I had an umbrella so that was good for me). The hot chocolate afterwords was great though, and Mr. Baracca’s leftover frosting was too.

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Thus picture was one of my favorite pictures from my time at Washburne. I was with all my friends, and we were all dressed up nice for picture day. It was at last nah when I took this photo, and the rest of the day was really fun, because it was sort of a free day. Washburne is about having fun while learning, and I think this picture sums that up perfectly.

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bruh look how ugly I look lol. I remember shaving my head and regretting it almost immediately. I knew it was for good cause but wow I looked stupid. I'm glad I did it, but I think that will be the last time.

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This is a video from our field trip to the city in 7th grade. I chose this video for the golden record because it was a really fun day to remember and it represents this trip.

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One of my favorite memories was when we went to D.C. and me and my friends got kicked out of one of the museum exhibit for running around and spying on Mr. Hovis

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a fun memory that I had was going on field trips and playing tag in the malls and getting in trouble because someone was running. From Oliver

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Avery S.
This is an important memory to me because it shows how my friend group has grown. Its also one of the best moments from my time at washburne. Washburne is about friendship and that’s what I’d want on my golden record.

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One of my favorite memories, was going on fun field trips with our team!

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Memory from 7th grade at Botanic Gardens 

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Memory from 7th grade at Botanic Gardens 

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Liesel Hartwig
I chose this picture, because we would go to the Botanic Gardens a lot in seventh and eighth grade, and I have a lot of great memories from the trips there. I chose this photo to remind me of the fun times, and memories I had going to the Botanic Gardens in seventh and eighth grade.

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Clicking on the link, you can choose "What's on the Record?" and the select "Images", "Sounds", or "Greetings".

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Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials. The Voyager message is carried by a phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth.

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Pioneers 10 and 11, which preceded Voyager, both carried small metal plaques identifying their time and place of origin for the benefit of any other spacefarers that might find them in the distant future. With this example before them, NASA placed a more ambitious message aboard Voyager 1 and 2, a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials.

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Second, please listen, reflect, and respond

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Second, please listen, reflect, and respond

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LISTEN
Required: 6:09-14:52. (ends with "What would your recipe of us be?")

Optional: Please listen to the whole podcast, paying close attention to when Annie Druyan speaks about Carl Sagan and the Golden Record.

REFLECT *please make sure that your first and last name shows up on the Padlet. If not, the title of your post should include your first and last name*
Please choose something meaningful to submit to the Class of 2020 Golden Padlet. It can be your own creation or something shared from the Internet. It can be an individual, class, school, or global reflection.

Possibilities include an iconic image, a memory of 7th or 8th grade science, a global memory from 2018-2020, a song, a poem, a drawing or piece of art work, etc.

Please submit your choice to the correct team header to the right. Please include a caption explaining your choice.

RESPOND
Please comment and support one other submission on your team and one other submission off team to complete the assignment.

Thank you!

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JAD ABUMRAD: Hey everybody, it's Jad. Okay, I want to announce something that's kind of new. You know, we've been making Radiolab for a long time, almost 20 years. And one of the questions that we get almost more than any other is which of your episodes are kid-friendly? Which episodes can I listen to with my kids? And it felt like a really important question to answer now that so many of us are isolated in our homes and having to figure out home schooling. I'm certainly in that situation. So we wanted to -- we wanted to help you guys out. So we launched a new podcast, it's called Radiolab For Kids. Basically, we went through our entire archives, gathered together some of our most favorite kid-friendly episodes and put them all in one place. You can go to Radiolab.org and subscribe to it there or, you know, wherever you get your podcasts, search for Radiolab For Kids and you'll find it. And we're gonna keep adding to this feed. And just to kick the whole thing off, I thought I would play one episode that's in that group that we've curated. This is one of the first Radiolabs I ever made, and the reason I wanted to start with this one is, you know, it's funny, I've been having a lot of conversations in the last few weeks with my oldest kid who's 10. He's been asking me a lot of questions about space and black holes, and I found it to be a really comforting topic of conversation right now. And I don't know why, maybe it's something about the scale. You know, we're in this moment where we're thinking about shifting of scales, giant pandemics sweeping the globe, how humans are so tiny and powerless at times. And all of this can be very scary. Here's a chance to take some of that same way of thinking, that same way of shifting scales, but apply it to something that's much more about wonder and discovery. So hope you enjoy it. Here's an episode all the way back from the beginning of Radiolab. It's called Space.

[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD: Some people go to therapy, some to church. Others come here to the northwest corner of a parking lot on Fire Island, where most nights you'll find a handful of people looking up.

JAD: The night I visited this guy, Ron was about one of 20 enthusiasts huddled over astral maps, staring through telescopes of all sizes.

JAD: Some so big you needed a ladder.

JAD: Through the telescope, Albireo looked like a headlight, bright and flat and close. Very immediate. But that was nothing compared to what happened next. A woman walks up, points her finger at the star ...

JAD: It was one of the coolest things I have ever, ever, ever seen. Her name was Linda. She had a pen that was a laser, and when she turned it on a focused, bright green beam of light sprung from her hand to the star like a long green finger. She literally touched the star. And for a moment, I forgot the ground underneath my feet and that that star Albireo was 50 million light-years away. It seemed right there.

JAD: This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad. Today on the program, we're gonna project our minds out there to the great beyond and ask some basic questions. Here to help as always ...

ROBERT: And in this hour we discover how big -- oh, sorry. And in this hour we find ourselves in space. We discover how immense, how huge space is, and then we ask ourselves, "Now, where does that leave us?"

ROBERT: And as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson will remind us later in the program, it is difficult for little specks like us to find walking, talking, intelligent specks somewhere else in the universe. But say what you will, we are trying.

JAD: Speaking of which, let's begin by rewinding the clock back to 1977.

JAD: This was a big year for the space program, because in August of that year NASA launched a spacecraft carrying a gold record. You remember this, right?

JAD: The record carried a message from us to them. Our story. Now it was Carl Sagan ...

JAD: Who led the team that made the record, and that team included -- actually, it was headed by Annie Druyan. I visited Annie at her home in Ithaca, New York, and we sat in the backyard near a waterfall in the same spot she says where Carl himself would sit and become so absorbed in what he was reading that he would not notice a deer standing right next to him.

JAD: Billions of years from now, the sun will have reduced this planet to a charred ashy ball, but that record with Ann Druyan's brain waves and heartbeat on it will still be out there somewhere intact in some remote region of the Milky Way preserving a murmur of an ancient civilization that once flourished on a distant planet.

ROBERT: Two hearts on a wing. Very nice.

ROBERT: Yeah, it is. Although there are six plus billion earthlings right now, and the best thing I think about Earth is that we're so various.

ROBERT: So you're gonna get six-plus billion versions of being an Earthling.

JAD: Yeah, like if you were Annie Druyan and Carl Sagan, what would your recipe of us be? So we asked a bunch of people.

JAD: Comedian Margaret Cho, you know her?

JAD: Neil Gaiman, this graphic novelist. Michael Cunningham, an author. The very famous chef Alice Waters. They all sort of, you know, told us what they would send. I'll play you one. Not gonna play all ...

ROBERT: Yeah, just one. I don't want to hear them all.

JAD: It would take too long. You can hear all of them on our website actually, Radiolab.org. But here is one guy we asked. He's a composer.

JAD: Jad here. Robert and I will continue in a moment.

JAD: This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: And I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: And this hour were talking about space, sending stuff into space, little messages in bottles or capsules as it were, so that the extraterrestrials of the future might one day find it.

JAD: Well, yes. Yes. But surely there are. I mean, someday Anne Druyan's space capsule is bound to run into someone and they'll know about us.

ROBERT: Well I -- just a second here. I know that the Anne story was beautiful and that you're in some kind of romantic haze ...

ROBERT: But if you would just get a little more cold-hearted here about solid facts, you might feel differently about this whole thing.

ROBERT: Well, what do you think is the likelihood of Anne's message of love ever being read by an intelligent alien somewhere in the universe?

JAD: I see where you're going with this. What do you have to ask that question? I mean, it's just a gesture. It's like a romantic thing.

ROBERT: No, no. This is an attempt, I think, to be fair to her, to have a real conversation. She wants someone to hear about this, but the chances are so remote when you consider the vastness of space. Suppose for example, you wanted to visit just -- I don't know, make it easy, the very next star to us, okay? Actually, that's too lucky. To meet a civilization, I think it would be so odd to come out and find one in the very first stop. Let's go four stars out to a star called Zeta Tucanae.

JAD: I see. You've been digging up on this.

ROBERT: I look -- I admit I looked it up. If we increase the speed of the Voyager capsule, Anne Druyan's message, from 35,000 miles an hour, that's how fast she was going, right?

ROBERT: Increase that speed to, say, a million miles an hour, how long do you think would it take for you to get to Zeta Tucanae?

ROBERT: This, Jad Abumrad, is a 1,200 generation trip. Do you know where the Abumrads were 1,200 generations ago?

ROBERT: They were living in a cave beating on a drum. That's what they were doing. So imagine a space trip in which you have to go forward 1,200 generations. That's a long trip.

ROBERT: [laughs] Well, you think that's tough? Listen to this. There's a whole 'nother problem we're gonna have to deal with.

ROBERT: Not the problem of distance. In this case, there's a problem of time. We have one of those too. Every civilization has an arc. You can think of it in threes.
[Explosion. Man screaming.]
JAD: [laughs] What the hell was that?

ROBERT: Well, a million years ago we were practically apes.

ROBERT: We'd hardly begun to have conversation. Now we have technology. We have radio and TV, and the universe can hear us.

ROBERT: But how long will it be do you think, before either from global warming or from some kind of war we're ...
[Explosion. Man screaming.]
JAD: The way the news has been recently? Days, weeks.

ROBERT: I'm gonna guess, like, a hundred million years or ten million years, but that's still a flash of time in a universe. Now suppose instead of one civilization, let's have two civilizations, another one out there.

ROBERT: If they arrive on Earth ready to talk and we're, oh ...

ROBERT: ... then there's no way to have the conversation. Or on the other hand, if they arrive on Earth after ...
[Explosion. Man screaming.]
ROBERT: ... then there's nobody to talk to.

ROBERT: And in a 14-billion-year universe with each civilization lasting, you know, only 10 million years, what are the chances of two civilizations lining up in perfect synchrony so they can have a conversation? It's almost mathematically impossible.

JAD: Yeah, fine, fine. But you have to keep something in mind though, right?

JAD: As a rule, people who make the argument you're making right now, pessimists as it were, as a rule those people are usually proven wrong, It's -- that's always how it goes. Let me play you something.

JAD: This is the guy who produced the Voyager record. His name is Tim Ferris.

JAD: Yes, so you just hold your horses, right?

ROBERT: Well I mean look, Tim is talking about the Pacific Ocean which is big, but I'm talking about the universe here. Mine is a much, much bigger space and therefore a much, much, much bigger problem. And when I want to ask questions about space ...

ROBERT: I usually go to this guy.

ROBERT: This is Brian Greene, Professor of Mathematics and of Physics at Columbia University.

ROBERT: So Jad, I said to Brian if we've got a spacecraft crawling through this vast, vast empty universe, how long a trip is it for just to start from wherever it is now to the -- to the end of the universe? And by the way, what is -- where is the end of the universe?

ROBERT: And now to make things even harder for our little capsule traveling through space, we now know that space, that the universe and the space that it is is expanding, constantly expanding. So imagine our little craft, all alone in nothingness, and every minute there's more nothingness and more nothingness and more nothingness and more ...

ROBERT: Brian Greene is Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University. This leaves us in a sort of strange position.

JAD: Yeah, lonely position.

ROBERT: In the sense that we have this little capsule riding somewhere in a space which just keeps changing. We don't know where it is or where we are relative to other things, and whatever we know is changing all the time. It used to be so different. Neil deGrasse Tyson who runs the Hayden Planetarium in New York City says once upon a time we knew where we were, at least we thought we knew where we were, and we were the stars.

ROBERT: And the speck that you just heard talking, who is over six feet tall by the way, is Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City.

JAD: See that right there though, is why I think a lot of people don't like science. Because any time that anyone normal wants to say that we are important ...

JAD: ... there's some scientist in a corner who's yelling, "Bah, that's just a speck!"

ROBERT: That's, you know, science's preference, but I don't -- I think artists, Shakespeare for example, who says what a piece of work is man, how noble in reason and all. It seems like it's art's job to say that we are special, significant, glorious, and it's science's job to say, "No, we're not."

JAD: Right. Well -- well, maybe art is where we should go next. Stay with us. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: And I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: And Radiolab will continue in a moment.

JAD: This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: And I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: And this hour on Radiolab we're looking at space. More specifically, our place in it, our place in the cosmos.

ROBERT: It's big. We're little.

JAD: Yes. But since, as you mentioned before the break, sometimes artists have their own particular ways of tilting things back in our favor, let me introduce you to someone.

JAD: I ran into Dario actually New York at the Whitney Museum. He was 27, and this was his first solo show.

JAD: Sculpture, mostly. That's his main thing. But on a side wall, he was displaying some photographs.

JAD: Which I asked him to show me.

JAD: Side by side, seven photos all showing the same thing.

JAD: Think back to kindergarten. That's what these remind you of. The day your teacher came in and said, "Okay class, we're gonna grow some seeds." These pictures are of that day. But more specifically, the day the seeds actually grew. Because each photo -- and there are seven -- shows one seed, tiny little seed, poking its head out of a massive cup.

JAD: Dario made the cups, put some dirt and a seed inside, and then crammed the top full of cotton.

JAD: Final step: When the seeds grew, like right at the moment that they grew, he snapped photos.

JAD: Maybe you recognize those names, maybe not. But here's the backstory as Dario tells it. It's 1984. Everyone's excited about space, and NASA ...

JAD: This was a probe that was basically meant to store things for long periods of time. So it had all these compartments.

JAD: It was brilliant PR. They said, "Okay, America. We've got this probe with all these compartments. What would you like to send into space?"

JAD: And we'll consider it. People of all stripes sent in ideas: Ant farms, paint samples, pond water.

JAD: April 6, 1984, the probe filled with seeds and all kinds of things goes aboard the space shuttle.

JAD: Launches successfully.

JAD: In a flash, seven people were gone and America changed its mind about space.

JAD: And meanwhile, that little probe the Challenger had been on its way to get and which was only supposed to be up there for about nine months, well it stayed up there.

JAD: January 19th, 1990, the probe is finally brought back after seven years by another space shuttle mission, this time without fanfare. Because all the kids that would have wanted those seeds were grown up. They didn't know or care anymore. And the only people that did were collectors, NASA geeks.

JAD: Through an online auction.

JAD: He planted the seeds in the cotton-filled cups, and the seeds did break through the cotton like spaceships bursting through clouds. And right as they did, he snapped photos. But then days later, and suddenly, they all died. All of them.

JAD: If you willfully invest in the illusion of a photograph as Dario does, this stage means that the seeds and everything they represent, the lives of the crew, the hope of a class of schoolkids, is frozen.

JAD: Forever. Then again, this is just an art project. Sometimes reality doesn't cooperate, because here's the sad coda to the story. It turns out the shuttle that picked up the probe in 1990 and brought it back was the Columbia. And just before Dario was preparing to show his pictures ...

JAD: Dario Robleto's an artist. Lives in San Antonio, Texas.

ROBERT: Nobody promised that space travel would be safe or pleasant or easy or even rewarding. All that was promised was that it would be an adventure, and sometimes we were in the mood and sometimes we weren't.

JAD: Well, Anne Druyan, Carl Sagan's widow who began the show, she remembers what it was like at the very beginning.

JAD: Yeah, according to Annie Druyan, somewhere around the space shuttle we lost our nerve.

ROBERT: Yeah, although there is now a new generation of people who would be space explorers and who say in the loud as possible way, "We don't want to be sissies in space anymore."

ROBERT: That was Peter Diamandis. Remember him?

ROBERT: The guy who offered the X Prize?

ROBERT: That space prize?

ROBERT: He was at a conference in Oxford in England called TED Global. It was an audience filled with entrepreneurs and technologists and he said to them, "You know why I created this prize? You know what's really gonna get people interested in space, exploring space, taking risks in space again?"

ROBERT: And here his instinct is kind of different from Annie Druyan's. What's gonna bring people back to space, he says ...

ROBERT: Think how much you could make if you could own an asteroid.

JAD: Hold on. What are -- what a puts?

ROBERT: That's what you do to finance grabbing one of those rocks, as he puts it.

ROBERT: But the key here remember is that you got to create a business. And to do that you need a business plan, some reason to invest and build and do. For that he has actually kind of a cool phrase.

ROBERT: Which in ordinary English means that there's got to be some way to get entrepreneurs to spend money, their own money, on some kind of space stuff.

ROBERT: Well, his first notion was he would sell tickets to rich billionaires. He sold a seat on the Russian space shuttle, the Soyuz, for $20-million.

JAD: Not any people I know.

ROBERT: Well -- but [laughs]. Yeah, I guess you're not gonna get a whole lot of people at prices like that.

ROBERT: So then he came up with a bigger, bolder, broader plan, which was a prize.

ROBERT: Because remember when Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic?

JAD: No, I don't remember. I wasn't born yet.

ROBERT: [laughs] Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic to win a prize.

JAD: That's really why he crossed? Seriously?

ROBERT: Yeah, for a cash prize.

ROBERT: Peter thought, "Why don't I create a prize of my own?" And he came up with the number 10 million bucks. That would be the prize.

JAD: Why $10 million, exactly?

ROBERT: Because it was just big enough to be really attractive to young scientific teams all over the world, $10-million, and just small enough to be boring to conservative, clunky companies like Lockheed and Boeing who wouldn't ever think of anything interesting, anyway.

JAD: He was trying to split the difference, I guess.

ROBERT: Yeah. But, you know, Peter doesn't have that kind of money. He's not a government. So where do you get $10-million?

ROBERT: You know how rare it is to hit a hole-in-one on a golf course?

ROBERT: Well, the insurance industry will make you a betting proposition. If you go to the insurance company and say, "I bet that I can go up and down in space twice in the same two-week period," and they go, "No, you can't," and you say, "Well, I'll give you a million dollars in premiums if you give me a $10-million insurance policy." He made the offer, the insurance company said, "Well, this isn't gonna happen," right?

ROBERT: ... just two months before the deadline ...

ROBERT: Plus, he got tons of publicity. He incentivized young scientists all over the world. He did it with other people's money. But then just as he was finishing the presentation, there was this guy in the room who got up and said ...

ROBERT: Said, "You know, Peter Diamandis, maybe you're not that brilliant. Maybe all you are is lucky."

JAD: That was a little too enthusiastic.

JAD: Yeah, but that's -- that's -- that was a cop-out answer, I have to say. Because when those people he's referring to, the people who crossed the Atlantic, crossed the plains, when they did all those things and then when many of them died, I mean thousands of -- I don't know how many.

ROBERT: Thousands, I'm sure.

JAD: Anyway, but when they died, those early Americans, they died alone. There were no TV cameras around, there was no Scott Simon on the radio. They were by themselves.

ROBERT: I think you're right.

JAD: It was a completely different time.

ROBERT: When you make it sensational, people will die sensationally. And then what's gonna happen to the money and the entrepreneurs and the businessmen?

JAD: Right. That's exactly right.

ROBERT: Businessmen don't exactly have a sterling reputation for sticking by their guns. If you have a small financial problem showing up in Brazil, people all over the world pull their money out of Brazil. You get a total rush for the exits. Total collapse.

JAD: It's true, they're always the first to leave. You know, money and wealth, it's good motivators to get us back to space, but once you get there, it's got to be about something more than that.

ROBERT: Like what, though? Because I agree with you, it's just ...

JAD: Well, it's -- I don't even know what to call it, exactly. But you certainly hear it. Take the last transmissions from the moon in December of 1972.

ROBERT: Uh-huh. Oh, last time we were there.

JAD: Yeah, the last time we were there. The voices you hear of those astronauts coming back, when you hear them talking ...

JAD: You hear something else.

JAD: The Last Transmission From the Moon, produced by Barrett Golding for HearingVoices.com. Thanks to him. If you want to hear that again or anything else in the program again, visit our website, Radiolab.org. We are now podcasting. Oh, and also on our website there are a couple of things which didn't make it into the program today, little space capsules.

ROBERT: Little artsy little compositions, yes.

JAD: Yes, so famous people saying what they would send into space. I know they're your favorite. You can find it Radiolab.org. And last but not least, if you want to send us email, Radiolab@wnyc.org is the address. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: And I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: Thanks for listening.
Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information. New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio's programming is the audio record. -30-

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JAD ABUMRAD: Hey everybody, it's Jad. Okay, I want to announce something that's kind of new. You know, we've been making Radiolab for a long time, almost 20 years. And one of the questions that we get almost more than any other is which of your episodes are kid-friendly?

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By Evan Hahn
I choose this picture because we were learning about plants and trees.

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I chose this photo because it reminds me of our good times at the botanic gardens. I remember going back there on another field trip and I recreated this photo.

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8th grade
I chose this photo from the botanic gardens because we would always go, but this was the first time seeing a caterpillar there.

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I picked this photo because it was the coolest looking photo that I took there.

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I chose a picture of this flower because I took this when we went to the Botanic Gardens. The weather was nice and it was a pretty fun day. So I chose this photo to remind me of the good times a Washburne. It was also one of my favorite pictures I took.

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By AJ Fata.

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I chose this photo because the art institute was a very fun field trip and it was very cool seeing all of Andy Warhol’s work so it would be really cool if someone on a different planet saw this and it inspired them, so that’s why I did this photo I took.

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This day was special because that’s when I really connected with friends. This is where I got dropped off.

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We picked up our dog, Tori, the weekend after starting seventh grade. She’s been with me through everything that these past two years have thrown at me. This photo was taken probably 2 weeks into my first year at Washburne, and she was still so small!

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This is a picture of the Andy Warhol exhibit from when we went to the Art Institute. This memory is special to me because I had a lot of fun that day, and it was also the last field trip we went on. I chose to include this so people can see how ,UCD art has changed since Andy Warhol made this.

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The first day of school

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A nice memory that I have from Washburne was field day. Field day was super fun and our whole class dressed up, and had lots of snacks. I chose this photo because it was super fun, and it is something we won’t be able to do this year. Field day is an important event and is part of the “recipe” because it is a time where advisories can come together, and have a fun competition

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I did an interview with Cole about some of his favorite things at Washburne

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The most memorable thing for me during my years at Washburne is just all of the friendships I’ve made. I’ve met and become friends with so many new people. Also, all of the field trips we’ve gone on as a team. And in a billion years from now, I want others to see what great experiences were created at Washburne.