Katherine Johnson: The Girl Who Counted Her Way to the Stars | Curie's Little Heroes | True story

Hello, little champion! Curie tells the true story of Katherine Johnson, a girl from West Virginia who loved to count and always wanted to know why, and grew up to help send astronauts into space. In this film, children meet four wonderful things to be: curious, hard-working, brave enough to ask, and careful to check. Along the way: counting steps and spoons, a family that finds a way to school, a very brave question at a meeting, an astronaut who asks for Katherine's careful checking, and helping astronauts reach the Moon. Say it with me: Count it, check it, check it again! Try it at home (with a grown-up): count the spoons in your kitchen. Then count them again. Is it the same number? That is called checking! Then pick something you are curious about and ask a grown-up, "Why?" Chapters 0:00 Hello, little champion! 0:35 Green hills of West Virginia 0:56 Katherine counts everything 1:37 Curious! 1:50 Too far for high school 2:21 A big family plan 2:51 College, and a teacher who helps 3:28 A computer with a pencil 3:56 Brave: asking to join the meeting 4:35 The first American in space 4:53 The astronaut asks for Katherine 6:11 To the Moon 6:22 Her name today and a special medal 7:00 Four wonderful things 7:40 Count it, check it, check it again! For grown-ups: this is a true story told for young children, with small storytelling touches. All the short spoken lines by Katherine and the other characters (her mom and dad, her teacher, the engineer at the meeting, and the countdown voice) are imagined to bring the story to life, but they follow documented events. The one exception is John Glenn's line, "If she says they're good, then I'm ready to go!", which is Katherine Johnson's own recollection of what he said, as told in NASA's biography of her. To keep the story gentle, the film gives no dates and no ages for her school and college years, and does not say whether her numbers matched the computer's. Facts were checked against NASA (biography, "A Lifetime of STEM", "The Girl Who Loved to Count", NASA kids pages, NASA Earth Observatory), West Virginia State University, Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the White House archive (Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2015). Her age at high school and college differs between sources (10 or 13; 15 or 18), which is why the film does not state ages. Curie's Little Heroes is a series from the Little Scientists Club: true stories of real people who started small and kept going, for curious young children. Narration and character voices are AI-generated (synthetic voices) and the pictures are original animation. #CuriesLittleHeroes #KatherineJohnson #WomenInSTEM #TrueStoriesForKids