Imagination

J.J. Abrams has created many action and sci-fi films and TV series. A few of the best-known are Star Wars, Mission Impossible III; and the TV show, Lost. Abrams loved magic when he was a boy. He once bought a Magic Mystery Box. For $15, he got $50 worth of magic. He carried the box everywhere he went, but he never opened it. Why not? He finally realized that it was the mystery that was so special. Not knowing what's in the box allowed him to imagine it. Mystery inspires imagination.

I once had a dream where the Earth was collapsing and we all had to hurry to get on a rocket ship to take us to another planet. There wasn't very much space on the ship, so we each could only bring 5 things (not including people or animals) with us. I remember choosing Beethoven's music, but I don't remember the other 4 things.

I often think about that dream and try to decide what I would choose now. Beethoven's music still makes the cut! What 5 things would you bring?

There's an insightful story that's used to explain lateral thinking, or thinking "outside the box". It goes like this:

A truck driver tried to pass under a low bridge, but the truck was too tall and got stuck. Traffic piled up behind it, and soon emergency workers, engineers, firefighters, and other truck drivers gathered to try to help.

New smartphones come on the market at least every year. Each model has its own pros and cons, giving that company the opportunity to beat out its nearest competitors for a share of the market. But it's a tough market! If you were going to introduce a new phone, you'd need to make it pretty special.

That's exactly the task required here: you and your teacher are going to come up with a new phone and create an ad that will persuade consumers to buy it.

Try to include two or more of the following power words:

"Prepare for warp speed." If you're a Trekkie or Star Wars fan, and maybe even if you're not, you've heard about warp drives and probably dreamed of being able to travel faster than the speed of light. It seemed like the stuff of fantasy—until now. Physicist Erik Lentz has come up with a theoretical model of a warp drive that would shorten a trip to the star Proxima Centauri, the closest star beyond our solar system, from 50,000–70,000 years using rocket fuel, or 100 years using nuclear fuel, to just 4 years and 3 months.

Mascots, or yuru-kyara, are incredibly popular in Japan. There are yuru-kyara for everything, from sports teams to prefectures to a toilet disinfectant (seriously). Now they're offering the world a mascot for the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The year 2020 has served as a benchmark for many predictions, from business markets to technological advances to climate change. In 2015, Factor magazine published a list of ten predictions for 2020, most of which have come true.

1. Same-day cancer treatment: YES

2. Self-driving cars on the road: YES

3. Cannabis market legalized and booming: YES

4. 4 billion internet users: YES (almost 4.5 billion)