A Creative Writer Looks at STEM’s Impact on What it Means to Be Human by Caroline B.

How do fiction and storytelling help us derive meaning from scientific and technological advancements? Science, technology and mathematics have significantly changed the way people think and live in our society, particularly within the past century. Medical advancements, space travel, the advent of the atomic bomb and the proliferation of cellular phones are all examples of technological advancements that have revolutionized our way of life. But how does this rapid change impact our humanity? I'm interested in exploring this question through fiction. STEM drives change through discovery and innovation, but I do not believe that humanity could withstand this constant revision of reality without a processing mechanism like storytelling. Literature and storytelling help us accept a changing world, by marking how we both evolve and stay the same through the passage of time. My project will consist of up to three novellas, each of which will explore humanity’s adaptation to and relationship with science and technology....Those Left Behind: Jovanna Buchanan is a seventeen-year-old girl, whose pragmatic approach to life and journalism have always served to keep her steady....Those Left Behind is a story of human ingenuity and endurance, in the face of bleak odds and seemingly insurmountable isolation....Calculand: Sine Wave is a Function, and one of the many strange and wonderful occupants of the Grid--a seemingly endless space from which there appears to be no escape....RS8-02: RS8-02 is a classified junk planet--one of the universe's giant space dumps, created so that the more beautifully terraformed planets can be completely uncluttered, and completely unconcerned for the environmental impact of their actions....