Written by Ella Badie
She was the first American woman to perform a spacewalk – then, she was the first woman to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Today, Doctor Kathryn D. Sullivan, “The most vertical person alive,” joins Reading With Your Kids Podcast Host Jed Doherty to celebrate her latest accomplishment, her children’s book How to Dive to the Deepest Place on Earth.
This book is her second collaboration with her Co-author and Illustrator Micheal J Rosen, the first How To Space Walk being about Sullivan’s journey to the moon. This time around, their goal is to make young readers feel like they’re alongside Sullivan on her dive into the Mariana Trench, detailing exactly what happens on these missions and the discoveries they’ll encounter.
Sullivan notes that most kids know more about outer space than the deep ocean. If you ask a class of elementary school students about space, they may describe craters on the moon, zero-gravity movement, or Mars rovers. If you ask the same class about the bottom of the sea, they’d probably go quiet. This inspired her to share her findings with curious kids, and shaped how she and Rosen approached their storytelling.
Former Astronaut Sullivan describes the bottom of the Mariana Trench as “moonlike”. The water is inky black, and without the help of high-strength flashlights, you wouldn’t be able to see what lies in front of you. The creatures aren’t like anything we are used to seeing; most are pure white or even see-through.
One may think that being far from civilization may make it feel insignificant, or that seeing the world from above may make humanity seem small. In contrast, when asked what her biggest takeaway from her deep-sea diving or missions to space is, Sullivan says this – no being is “too small”. From the see-through worm-like creatures at the bottom of the sea, or the thousands of engineers and scientists who work on space missions, Sullivan has learned that we are all integral to our world.
She wants readers to know that teams are what make exploration possible. As she puts it “You can not get anything done if everyone is fighting to be the front-man.” Behind the “First American Woman to Walk on the Moon” were thousands of hard-working aerospace engineers, scientists, and safety inspectors who made it possible. She notes seeing these thousands of joyous faces at the homecoming of her space missions as some of the greatest and emotionally moving moments in her life.
Sullivan credits her fearlessness to her early introduction to critical thinking. Her missions were never scary. From a young age, she learned to evaluate the risks of her endeavors and compare them to the value they bring. She’s a scientist at heart, and because there is such an advancement of research that comes from doing it, she believes it is worth accepting risks.
Her parents fostered this way of thinking by always being supportive of her curiosity. She says the relationships you have with your kids, such as having normal dinner table conversations, build the muscle of curiosity and problem solving, simply by including your children in your adult thought processes and critical thinking patterns.
She never felt as though she was limited in certain professions or hobbies, because she was a girl. Her parents were supportive of her and her innate curiosity. As she grew older, she learned to ignore outside noise about “fitting in” to gender stereotypes. She thinks it is important for girls today to feel supported in STEM fields and other male-dominated professions.
The advancement of AI presents fear for those currently pursuing STEM fields, but when asked, Dr. Sullivan shared her hopeful perspective: “I suspect we’re a long way away from where AI, in the machine sense, can replace the creativity, the imagination, the meaning and the purpose of humanity.”
She urges the next generation to focus on the understanding of what it means and why it is important to be human; something she believes machines can never take over.
What’s next for Dr. Kathryn – to keep exploring. At 74, Sullivan says she “shows no signs of running out of curiosity”.
Her deep wanting to learn and her drive for discovery have led her to becoming a remarkable voyager of the universe. She reminds us that with a support system and curiosity, anything is possible.
To listen to the full interview, click here: https://readingwithyourkids.libsyn.com/what-kids-can-learn-from-the-most-vertical-woman-in-the-world
You can listen to Reading With Your Kids on the iHeartRadio App, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you find your podcasts.
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