Josh and I attended a Jane Goodall book lecture and got to meet her afterward and have her sign her new book! Josh's school has a Jane Goodall "Roots and Shoots" chapter, plus one of the kid's parents in Hannah's class (Aidan) work for the Writers Festival, which sponsored the talk. At the end of the lecture the kids from Academy St-Laurent all got to go up on stage with their star Science teacher who runs the chapter! Besides meeting Jane, the highlight of the evening for Josh was getting to ask Jane a QUESTION!
After her talk she asked the audience for questions. We'd been discussing Jane's research and importance at home (she's such an amazing role model!) and he had some questions already he wanted answers too. SO when they said, "Does anyone have a question?" Josh was so excited! ME he said!
We were lucky to be sitting near the front (with the school, as we were special guests). When they brought the mic over he started talking then suddenly got shy, so he made ME ask the question! There was over 1000 people there!! It was in an BIG old church!! SO I said, "Hi, we've been talking about you at suppers and in the car over here and my son would like to know, when you were studying the chimpanzees, how did you come to know that they sounds and gestures they made really DID mean what you thought they did?" Not a bad question for an 8 yr old! (he had more questions, but that was the one that got asked)
She was so genuine and approachable. She spoke right to Josh and made Aidan's dad get up on stage and pretend to be a chimp so she could demonstrate the process of observing and making notes of what the chimps did before and after the behaviour, and that it was a long process you did over and over. Josh was so inspired after the talk to do something similar, and be sure to OBSERVE nature! I thought the talk would be very long for him (It started at 8pm on a Monday, in Ottawa, we got home at 11pm by the time it was over and we drove home) But she spoke in such a plain, simple manner, used humour and funny anecdotes that everyone was left wanting more and couldn't believe the time went so quickly!
A night to never forget!
