“If you can’t explain what we’re doing to a 10 year old then you’ve got no chance of explaining it to an adult.” – Brian Cox
BBC’s Newsround, the world’s first tv news programme specifically aimed at kids, has been running since 1972.
Newsround’s presenter Lizo Mzimba came to CERN to do a news item for the programme.
[audio:http://www.yada-yada.co.uk/podcasts/LHC/audio/CBBCNewsround.mp3%5D
(direct link here)
cernpodcast 
Excellent post. Could not have said it any better myself. Hat’s off to a post well said.
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I absolutely agree with Brian’s statement about explaining things like this to a ten year old.
I have to disagree however with the view of the newsround presenter, that you must do so by explaining the practical applications of these experiments, and that these facts should be simplified ‘down to their level’.
Kids are smart, and the idea that they are so should be encouraged.
I didn’t give a monkeys about the practical applications of the voyager missions, of space-time theory or any of that when i was a kid. All i knew was it was the coolest stuff I’d ever heard of, and i wanted to know more.
A recent reading of Cosmos swiftly delivered me back to that child-like state of absolute wonder at the complexities and beauty of the universe. Just as Brian observed that we must continue to over-reach in our scientific conquests, we must not deny that right to our children. They are a LOT smarter than we give them credit for.
Let every science textbook for kids start with the observation that we are ‘star stuff, we are the universe knowing itself’
The mind still boggles.
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