🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1jojh1INNt5t@gap.caltech.edu>, carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
|> In article <C16H1H.BzJ@csulb.edu>, dpalmer@csulb.edu (David Palmer) writes:
|> =Good science fiction is a superb teaching tool. It stretches the imagination,
|> =gives people ideas and goals to work for (or against). Many of today's 
|> =scientists were inspired in their youth by reading science fiction. 
|> 
|> YES! Have your class read _Ringworld_.  Let them talk about it for a while.
|> Then give 'em _Ringworld_Engineers_ (and make 'em read the preface!) to see the
|> sort of things they missed.
|> 
|> =I myself have recently latched onto a couple of promising ideas by reading
|> =Arthur Clarke's "Ghost From the Grand Banks." Clarke is one of the best at
|> =giving his readers technology problems to solve. He was the one who first
|> =suggested using satellites to relay communications around the earth.


	how about Huxley's "Brave New World" with its frightening view of genetic
engineering, or Lem's "Return from the stars" with its seemingly technologically
content utopia, or LeGuin's "The Dispossessed" with its invention of the
'ansible'(Orson Scott Card pays tribute to her by using this term in "Ender's
Game")...or actually, any of LeGuin's books that deal with the league of planets. 
Niven's "Ringworld" was interesting, but his writing style is severely lacking; 
he's not the most descriptive of authors, and it may be difficult to
get high school students to actually like the book because it doesn't flow.  Some
good scifi staples for high school students are probably Bradbury's "Martian
Chronicles" and "R is for Rocket".
	for just plain, simple science fiction enjoyment, Clarke's "Childhood's
End" is quite a good read.  We had to read it in my high school 'future lit.'
class, and it still remains as one of my favorite scifi books.

					-Aaron Woolsey

					 wools@athena.mit.edu