You make the world go round

In my work as a preschool teacher I have taken string and run it along our playground with my class to show them how long dinosaurs were, I have used balls in a field to create accurate distances in our solar systems, and I have even had parents who are medical professionals x-ray pieces of themselves so that I have real x-rays to show what bones really look like. The moment that they see something bigger than themselves, the ‘WOW’ moment I call it, is one of the reasons I love my job so much. Yet, as a typical adult, I know that I find my own ‘WOW’ moments less and less the older and older I get.During our trip in September I was trying to capture the Universe of Energy’s interior mural, because if you have learned one thing reading the Main Street Gazette it is that I love mosaics and murals, when I was approached by a female Cast Member who asked me since I was taking the photograph if I had time for her to tell me the story about it. It may be the teacher in me, and I cannot imagine how many people turn her down when she tries to show them this, but I always answer questions like this, “Sure.”

She took me back to the sliding doors and the center of the mural, the point from which the circles radiate down both walls. This, she informed me, was representative of the Sun and its flares. As we traveled along the right wall, which now depicted one of the original energy sources to my wife and I, she spoke about the rays and the different intensities the colors made up and then she stopped.

“Do you see that little speck there on the blue tile?” she paused to give us a moment to find it, “That represents the Earth in comparison to the Sun, and its distance from the Sun.”“WOW…”

It doesn’t take much to impress me, but this was still one of those moments when you have to stop and take notice of how grand the things are around you and beyond you. Not only is this a great and very thoughtful detail, but it also provides me with a moment to be a teacher. The next time someone asks you if they can show you something, especially in Walt Disney World, leap at the chance. After all, it isn’t every day you get the chance to learn something new, seeing something in a new light, or wow yourself.

Coincidentally, I don’t believe the Earth is actually that blurry in person.