Toe-to-Toe With a Whiz Kid

Zion, a handsome, lanky thirteen year old showed up at our duckweed open house a couple of weeks ago. His dad owns the farm where I grow my duckweed. Zion didn’t say much at the time, just listened hard as I gave him and his cousin a tour.

He came back a few days later with his dad and struck up a conversation  that I will never forget. This is how it went down as we stood watching fresh duckweed water drain from the tailgate of the pickup:

Zion: (without preamble) Did you know that a Galileo probe actually landed on Jupiter a few years back but it was crushed by the intense gravity of the planet?

Me: (shifting rusty gears from duckweed to astronomy) Uh… no.  can’t recall that. I did just read that the Voyager 1 probe has exited our solar system, a first in space exploration.

Zion: Did you know that if you put a drop of ink in a swirling vortex of water, it simulates a black hole because light cannot be reflected off the interior of the vortex?

Me: (gulping a bit) That is too cool!  I know we are going to  witness a past event where a black hole absorbed a gas cloud and it’ll be epic.

Zion: Did you know that sound waves go on forever in space? Martin Luther King’s live version of  “I Have a Dream” is being broadcast right now into infinity.

Me: (jaw dropped) They don’t teach you all this in 7th grade surely???

Zion: I watch the Science Channel. Can you teach me how to grow duckweed?

Me: (now pretty much under his spell) I don’t know who is going to be teaching who here, but sure!

Zion helped me for the next two hours as we harvested a load of duckweed and processed it for the solar dryer.  He was attentive, not afraid to get his hands dirty, and a hard worker.  I made him an honorary member of the ILA and gave him a guest pass for our next ILA Round Table concall.

He is going to steal the show.