Dr. Fiorella Terenzi On Teaching Astrophysics With Space Opera

This week, I spent a day at the semi-annual Digital Hollywood conference, in part reconnecting with friends and business associates. After moderating a truly great panel of thoughtful people in  influencer marketing (you can watch the panel here; scroll to about the 1-hour mark in the day-long video to get to my panel), I also got a chance to watch a panel featuring the Italian astrophysicist and musician Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, then I sat down separately with her to talk about "Let's Get Astrophysical,"  the class she teaches at Florida International University and at California State University - Channel Islands.  The class combines traditional astronomy with creative expressions such as music, art, fashion and dance, along with some wisdom on being entrepreneurial, and even some Internet etiquette. As part of the class, the students create what Terenzi calls a space opera, "Tommy" for the spheres. Terenzi has been crossing between hard sciences and the humanities for decades, dating back to a 1987 album for Island Records that used radio frequencies generated by stars and galaxies to create music. Now, besides her teaching, Terenzi is working on a new virtual-reality project that incorporates all five senses. Guess what Mars smells like?  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/davidlbloom/support