I really enjoy teaching ‘The Science of Submarines’ to the young readers of ‘Submarine Warriors.’

As a writer of children’s books, I get to take kids, tweens, and teens on an underwater submarine adventure with elements of fantasy and science fiction.  What you may not know is that I teach the science of submarines in addition to reading passages from my latest novel.  There’s a whole world of learning to be found beneath the waves and I’ve brought many of the facts found at http://submarinewarriors.com into the classroom.

For example, I take the following submarine-related topics and make them understandable to kids:

• How to generate energy through nuclear fission > Split those atoms to create heat
• How to get oxygen from seawater > Must find a way to keep breathing when staying underwater
• How to separate freshwater from saltwater > Can’t drink the saltwater that surrounds the sub
• How to remove carbon dioxide from the air > There’s no trees underwater to absorb what humans exhale
• How a nuclear reactor works > Heated water makes steam to spin turbines which creates electricity
• How a submarine dives and surfaces using water and high-pressure air > It’s easy to sink, but harder to surface
• How a Trident II missile uses a gyroscope > A rocket must sense that’s it’s falling into the ocean so it can ignite
• How to ‘see’ with sonar > Our ears must become our eyes underwater

Kids are surprised to find the crewmembers sleep between nuclear missiles and that a Trident submarine is as tall as the Space Needle in Seattle if you stand it on end.  Learning that submariners often walk on floors of canned food until they eat their way to the real floor is an unusual tidbit.

There’s lots of bright, young Einsteins to be found in our schools with an eagerness to learn!  Teaching our children in the classroom is definitely one of the most rewarding things in my life.

- Rob