By Sophia Lu

Information is all around us, just taking on different forms. Netflix videos that you rely so much on to kill time; language you speak; songs you stream; text messages you send… All boil down to those bits and bytes so crucial to the digital age. But…how to encode such information in a way that fourth graders can understand? For this project, I created (wrote and illustrated) a children’s book on information theory. The intended audience is third/fourth graders.

I vaguely recall that when I was in elementary, I was very drawn to colorful and dreamy things. So, to make the concepts more fun, I added a lot of bright colors to the illustrations. This book has undergone significant modifications since its first version. I am currently in the process of modifying it again in an effort to make it less technical and more intuitive and fun to read. If you have any suggestions or ideas, please let me know!

Outreach Activity

For the exciting outreach night, I read and handed out my book to elementary kids (and their parents). I realized after the outreach that I need to make this book even more exciting so that it is interesting to young children. I am looking to tying the concepts together with a fun plot, taking out a majority of the words and replacing them with pictures. I am also thinking about adding in puzzles to the book to interact with my audience. Again, any ideas are welcomed!