You Will Help Build It
Some people think the future is something that just happens to you — like weather rolling in. But that is not true at all. The future is something that gets built. And the builders are regular people, just like you, who had an idea and decided to try it. You are going to be one of those builders.
Young People Have Already Changed the World
You might think you have to be a grown-up to make a difference. But history is full of young people who changed things. A 12-year-old named Louis Braille invented a way for blind people to read by touch — it is called Braille and millions of people still use it today. He was hurt in an accident as a young child and lost his sight. Instead of giving up, he invented something amazing while he was still a teenager. A 15-year-old named Jack Andraka came up with a faster, cheaper way to test for cancer after a family member got sick. He read everything he could find, wrote to hundreds of scientists, and one of them gave him lab space to try his idea. Neither of them was a grown-up. Both of them changed the world anyway.
You do not have to wait until you are grown up to start building the future. Young people have changed the world before, and you can too.
So how do you build the future? You start by noticing. Notice what is hard or unfair or slow. Notice what could be better. Notice what makes people sad or stuck. Then you ask: what if there were a better way? After that, you learn. You try. You fail sometimes. You try again. And bit by bit, your idea becomes real. That is the whole secret. There is no magic. It is just noticing, imagining, and doing.
Flashcards — click each card to reveal the answer
What Could You Build?
Think about your daily life. What is something that could be easier, faster, kinder, or more fun? Maybe it is a way to help your pet when you are at school. Maybe it is a game that teaches math without feeling like homework. Maybe it is a tool that helps someone in your family who has a hard time with something. You do not need to know how to build it yet. You just need to notice the idea. The knowledge can come later. The idea has to come first. And you already have plenty of ideas. You just might not have called them inventions yet.
Keep a small notebook — real or imaginary — where you write down problems you notice. Every problem on that list is a future invention waiting to happen.
How does someone build the future?
What did Louis Braille do that changed the world?
Terms
Definitions
Drag terms onto their definitions, or click a term then click a definition to match.
My Inventor Notebook
Look around your home, school, or neighborhood and find one thing that could be better or easier. Write down or draw: (1) the problem you noticed, (2) who it makes things hard for, and (3) your first idea for making it better. There are no wrong answers — the point is to practice noticing. Share your idea with someone and tell them what gave you the idea.