Review: How To Hear The Universe

How did you celebrate Random Acts of Kindness

week in your corner of our world?

At school, I witnessed a kind act: During a Family Feud game to review our vocabulary, one of two students who were on deck got stuck on a word. Instead of using it as an opportunity for a chance to earn a point for his team, his opponent whispered the correct answer to him.

Kindness for the win.

It was a sweet collaboration, the perfect segue into today's biography:

Due out in just a few weeks, How To Hear The Universe is a brilliantly-vibrant picture book that spotlights a collaboration that spans a century: Two brilliant minds, each with the same inquiry and a heart willing to question, predict and calculate, to think, predict and measure. From a pebble of an idea that Albert Einstein threw into the sea of possibilities (but was never quite able to prove) to a ripple felt by Gaby González, first in Argentina where she grew up, and ultimately in New York, where she did her ground-breaking research with a team of physicists. This newcomer beautifully details how Gaby discovers the truth about space-time.

Students can compare and contrast the reflections of these two scientists:

"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."

~Albert Einstein

"We want to know everything about the universe - that's humanity.

We are very, very curious." ~ Gabriela González

From the glossary in the back of the book or from additional research,

invite students to find out what these two scientists have in common.

Then ask: How must it have felt for Gaby to finish something

that Albert Einstein had started 100 years earlier?

Use the story as a springboard for your students to research

something that they've been curious about.

Start with: I'm curious about ________________