In my own words · Phillips County, KS

Why I love technology

A wide-angle view of the flight control room of NASA's Mission Control Center, filled with rows of consoles and display screens. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Technology" page — read by families in Phillips County, KS. — A wide-angle view of the flight control room of NASA's Mission Control Center, filled with rows of consoles and display screens. NASA · Public domain

Someone made this. That means I could make one too.
Every button was a choice a person made.
When it breaks, there is a reason. I can find the reason.

You can love technology in Phillips County.

What it really is

Technology is a tool somebody built on purpose to solve a problem.

Three things to try today

Pick one thing in your house and ask what problem it solves.
Find the part that would break first.
Draw a better version.

Technicians in white clean-room 'bunny suits' begin work on the Dawn spacecraft inside a payload processing clean room. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Technology" page — read by families in Phillips County, KS. — Technicians in white clean-room 'bunny suits' begin work on the Dawn spacecraft inside a payload processing clean room. NASA · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

This page is written to the child, not about them. If a kid in Phillips County, KS loves technology, here is the grown-up version of what they already feel. Phillips County is one of 105 counties in Kansas.

Teach the machine as a made thing, not a magic thing. Made things can be understood.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Phillips County, KS →