Festival Book Fair

Guest Blog by Lindsey Shephard Rainmaker and Resident Mom at GoldiBlox At GoldieBlox, we truly believe there are millions of girls out there who are engineers, but they just don’t know it yet.  We’re thrilled to join this year’s USA Science & Engineering Festival, where we’ll be able to interact with girls and their families, showing them how fun engineering and science can be! Like many other festival goers, we feel as though the toy industry could use some STEM love, especially among girls’ toys.  If you take a stroll down the “pink” aisle at the toy store, you’ll come across princesses…

Guest Blog By Andrea BeatyNew York Times bestselling author of Rosie Revere, Engineer and Iggy Peck, Architect along with children’s novels, Dorko the Magnificent and Attack of the Fluffy Bunnies Kids are their own worst critics. Perfectionism can reduce even very young children to hysterics over toppled towers, drawing disasters and other creative catastrophes. It breaks our parenting hearts to watch and we rush in with hugs and kind words to soften the blow. I confess that when my kids were young, I sometimes resorted to less dignified tactics to calm them. “Look! . . . It’s Barney! . . .…

Guest Blog By David BolinskyFounder and Creative Director of e*mersion Studio In 1962, when I was ten, my family and I had the rare privilege of exploring the ancient caves of Lascaux in southern France to see 17,000 year-old Paleolithic paintings close up. Though sadly no longer open for public viewing, these iconic works changed me forever. In his film ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams’, Werner Herzog documented limestone galleries of astonishing thirty-thousand-year-old artwork in the French Chauvet Pont d’Arc. Having practiced the visualization of science for nearly forty years, I resonate with…

Guest blog by Dr. John SotosGetting the Science Right in Hollywood Panel Member and Book Fair Author at the USA Science & Engineering Festival  I love medicine.  But maybe not for the reasons you think. Most people go into the field desiring to help others.  Not me, at least not at first. Many people go into medicine to make scientific discoveries.  Not me. And, alas, some people go into medicine to gratify their ego, pad their wallet, or satisfy parental expectations.  Not me, thank goodness.  I went into medicine because, well . . . I don't really know why.  And that's the point. One of…

By Shawn Flaherty  Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist and author of New York Times’ list topping “The Future of the Mind,” is one of 31 best-selling science-related and children’s book authors (and characters) who will be signing books during the USA Science & Engineering Festival’s Book Fair, hosted by Anderson’s Bookshops.   The Book Fair is part of the 3rd USA Science & Engineering Festival Expo, hosted by founding and presenting sponsor Lockheed Martin, taking place April 26 and 27 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in D.C. from 9am to 6pm daily.  Designed to inspire…

In an eventful two-day affair hosted by Anderson's Bookshops, don't miss the opportunity to meet and hear some of the nation's most exciting and inspiring authors in STEM at the Festival Expo's Book Fair. Hear these authors talk about their books and adventures, April 26-27, 2014, plus get your favorite must-have books autographed. The Book Fair will also feature STEM-related games toys and learning kits for kids of all ages, and those who are kids at heart! Here are just some of the amazing authors you will experience: Michio Kaku. What does the future hold for the human mind and…

The USA Science and Engineering Festival will really heat up when Popular Science and Make Magazine writer William Gurstelle speaks at the Family/Hands-on Science Stage on Sunday morning. Gurstelle, who wrote the bestselling DIY science book Backyard Ballistics, will be reading from his newest book, The Practical Pyromaniac. The book is a hands-on guidebook to playing with fire and narrates the story of humankind's long-coming understanding of the most important chemical reaction on the planet. In addition to his talk, William will join a number of other well-known science authors including…

By Larry Bock Founder and organizer, USA Science & Engineering Festival The world runs on science and math, but let's face it, to get this across effectively to young students we sometimes have to get a little, well... messy. No one knows this better than math and science author Sean Connolly who's gained a reputation with kids and teachers alike for breathing life into such potentially stuffy scientific tenets as Boyle's Law and Bernoulli's Principle through hands-on demonstrations and experiments that involve everything from potato guns and cola geysers to film-canister rockets and…

By Larry Bock Founder and Organizer, USA Science & Engineering Festival Planet Earth -- that fragile blue marble in space that we call home -- deserves better from all of us, I think we would agree. And for good reason. With such issues as energy, pollution, conservation and sustainability, and climate becoming rising worldwide concerns, it behooves everyone to do their part to make sure she thrives -- and survives. NASA astronaut Ron Garan said last year after returning from spending more than five months on the International Space Station situated 250 miles above Earth: "I looked down…

By Max Kurzweil When we're at a baseball game or on a picnic we call 'em chips. But when we're cooking up experiments at the Chip Science Institute we maintain in our basement, or at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington D.C., we call the world's most beloved munchie "research material." For the last five years my dad and I have been using potato chips as a portal into the world of biology, chemistry, earth science, and physics. Who knew thin-sliced, deep-fried tubers could teach us about buoyancy, electrostatics, surface tension, acoustics, forensics, Bernoulli's principle,…

The Festival is thrilled to have Homer Hickam, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Rocket Boys, as a Featured Author this year. Homer's new book Crater, the first novel in his new Helium-3 series for young adults, will be released just in time for the Festival. You have the opportunity to meet Homer at the Teen Book Fair Stage: Fiction on Sunday, April 29th at 10:55 AM with a free book signing after! Homer will also be a part of USA Science & Engineering Festival Book Fair Featured Author Panel Discussion entitled Science Stories in Society & School: Using Narrative to Bridge…

by Fred Bortz, author of Meltdown! The Nuclear Disaster in Japan and Our Energy Future (Twenty-First Century Books, 2012) A year ago this week, on March 11, 2011, the biggest earthquake in Japan's history devastated the Tohoku region, 320 kilometers northeast of Tokyo. In the huge tsunami that followed, more than 13,000 people drowned, and thousands of buildings and homes were reduced to rubble. Within hours, horrifying photos and videos spread around the world. But the most frightening news was yet to come. The Fukushima Dai'ichi nuclear power plant was seriously damaged and three of its…

By Larry Bock Founder and organizer, USA Science & Engineering Festival It's both funny and remarkable how some of the most simple and natural acts we do each day are teeming in science. Take for example, the kiss. A kiss, especially a passionate one, sets off a cascade of emotions and chemical reactions in our brain and body that would surprise most of us if we knew the whole story. Well, just in time for Valentine's Day, Sheril Kirshenbaum, science writer and author of the recent book, The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us, sheds light on exactly what goes on…

By Sean ConnollyFestival Featured Author What a difference a digit makes! There I was preoccupied with making my own eggnog, checking page proofs, and It's a Wonderful Life on television. Then along comes January 1, and with it that odometer switch from "1" to "2" at the end. Suddenly 2012 is this year. And this year means a trip to DC in late April for the USA Science and Engineering Festival. A festival appearance gets us authors out of our garrets, blinking as we meet the real people out there. And it's those real people--particularly the young ones--who make it all so much fun. I can…

Sitting elbow to elbow with strangers in the movie theatre is nothing new to the average American. However, when you are cramped in a packed theatre and you hear a cough every now and then while watching the movie Contagion, well that's another story. Even if you are viewing this movie in the comfort of your home, your mind will start to wonder about the thousands of hands that could have touched this disk you received in your mailbox this afternoon from Netflix. Then it begins..."What have I been exposed to?" My irrational fear as well as fascination about epidemics first grew after the…

"The periodic table is the universal catalog of everything you can drop on your foot" --Theodore Gray You have the amazing opportunity to hear from best-selling author Theodore Gray at this year's USA Science and Engineering Festival Book Fair! Gray will be speaking at the Teen Non-Fiction Festival Stage at 11:50 am on Saturday, April 28th. His newest book is Theodore Gray's Elements Vault: Treasures of the Periodic Table with Removable Archival Documents and Real Element Samples - Including Pure Gold! Gray's other books, The Elements and Mad Science, are international bestsellers, as is…