The students attending space scientist Bruce Jakosky’s lecture have witnessed a lifetime of space discoveries.
Now, Jakosky’s afternoon talk is raising much ado about the possibility of extraterrestrial life on Mars among these seniors — not college seniors, but the kind who understand Jakosky’s reference to “rabbit ears” when he shows pictures of antennas on the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution spacecraft, set to launch in 2013.
On a monthly basis, professors from the University of Colorado visit the Balfour Retirement Community in Louisville, where retirees are eager to hear about research emerging from the nearby Boulder campus. The partnership between the university and retirement center started in May.
The CU lectures, as well as weekly discussions about current events, are among the most popular events at Balfour, says Susan Juroe, general counsel for the community.
Retirement communities need to escape the stereotype of being “Jello and bingo vortexes,” she says, and instead stimulate the minds of their highly educated residents.
“Seniors need to exercise their brains,” Juroe says. “It’s almost a matter of ‘use it or lose it.'”
At this most recent lecture, last week, Jakosky talks about the spacecraft that will probe Mars, looking for the planet’s potential to harbor life over the ages.
Some of the seniors sitting in on the lecture spent decades as leading scientists. (This clique tends to sit together in the front rows, their hands shooting up first to ask the more technical questions).
Art Wainwright, 85, stays after “class” to talk with Jakosky about the search for methane on Mars.
Wainwright worked for the National Institute of Standards and Technology on atomic clock advances.
“I’ve been interested in science my whole life,” he says. “It never ceases to surprise me.”