Southwest Airlines, you will always hold a special place in my heart as it was a magazine on one of your flights that planted the seed of The Martians in Your Classroom! I am writing this from a Southwest Air flight to Virginia to do a keynote address at the MSiC K-12 Educators Conference: Reaching for the Stars in STEM Education and to do a book signing with my coauthor and what better time to share a little more about the conception story!
In January 2017, on a short flight from my home in Phoenix to Los Angeles, I was disappointed to discover that the flight wasn’t Wi-Fi equipped and I hadn’t brought reading materials for the trip… I know, an entire hour of my life unplugged from the internet! I pulled out the Southwest Air magazine from the back of the seat in front of me and flipped through the pages. An image of the surface of Mars with the line, “The red planet is within reach. Now it’s time to start thinking even bigger,” grabbed my attention and I began reading the article by Stephen Sandford titled, “Beyond Mars.”
Credit: Southwest The Magazine
The article talked about the impact of NASA spinoffs on the world around us, projected advances in Space travel, and what we need to do to ensure that we move forward in education.
Credit: Southwest The Magazine
I started following the author on social media and referencing his stats in presentations and workshops. I eventually reached out to him through LinkedIn to see if he would be available for an interview for an article in Techniques magazine. After a few phone conversations and meeting in person while in Washington, DC to speak at a STEM consortium, we talked about building on the research for his first book, The Gravity Well, and co-authoring a book on the topic from an education perspective.
I reached out to EdTechTeam Press to see if they would be interested in publishing this book, and eight months later, the Martians in Your Classroom was released.
Thanks, Southwest Air, for providing relevant, diverse articles that lead to spinoffs of their own! Next time you are flying Southwest, be sure to embrace the #JOMO and flip through the magazine, enjoy the excitement and the wonder of the view below, talk to a stranger, and allow for possibilities you had never imagined!
