So there’s a question I’ve been trying to answer for a really long time:
“What’s the best way to teach people about science?”
I think about this a lot and I want to share my thought process with you.
Let’s start at the beginning…
..Too early.
So I studied science, like psychology, biology, even neurobiology, and it was pretty fun.
I landed a job with Australia’s national science agency, and I travelled to schools,
teaching kids and teenagers about all areas of science.
And I came across some research, which found that children have formed an opinion about
science, either positive or negative, by the age of 7.
Which surprised me.
So I was pretty motivated to show young kids how amazing science is.
I took workshops to kids in remote tropical islands, I went to Papua New Guinea and I
even gave astronomy talks in the middle of Australia.
More research has found that problem-solving is a much better approach in education than
lectures and memorisation.
And since most of my classes were hands on, I was pretty happy.
And then…
I discovered YouTube.
It intrigued me that a five minute video had the potential to reach millions of people,
when I could only see a couple of hundred students every week.
But… is online education as effective as place based education?
And does one have more of an impact than the other?
I pondered this question for a couple of years.
Also, did I want to put my face all over the internet?
I procrastinated for a while...
I did a masters degree in science communication and then I decided: it’s time.
BrainCraft was born.
And it’s been two and a bit years of trying to be a better writer and animator and editor.
I tried to do some interactive things to get back to that “problem-solving” approach
and I just made a lot of videos to see what you guys liked.
And then I stopped and thought…
“What is the best way to teach people about science?”
In videos, there’s a spectrum of “edutainment” – on the education side you have something
textbook inspired, like Crash Course; and on the entertainment side you have something
that feels like a movie, like Vsauce3.
So – is one more effective than the other?
I asked Will, my research supervisor from my Master’s degree.
He always has words to say.
“That's a hard question, because both of them are really important.
Now, I gotta say, one: they do different jobs.
The story telling, entertainment, documentary style is really about grabbing you and about
saying why this is important, why it's worth listening to.
The other end is, there's a time and a place for a textbook.
Look, I think the gap and the hard work is to do entertainment that grabs you and to
say why something's important.”
Still, I thought I’d experiment, and try something on the entertainment side of the
spectrum.
And on the quality side of the quality vs. quantity spectrum.
But… that’s kinda hard to do by yourself.
This is when the YouTube Space stepped in.
They very kindly provided me with a crew “My name's Ali Brocato and I'm the DP on this
production."
"My name is Lena Alkhatib and I'm the sound mixer for this project."
and another stop-motion animator “Hi!
I'm Jennifer and I am a stop-motion animator, I'm helping Vanessa today” to help bring
my ideas to life.
I wanted to create a beautiful animation about the work of a really cool scientist – Elizabeth
Blackburn.
I interviewed her first “Are there any steps that you take in your personal life, that
have come from your research, to try and be a healthier person?"
"Yes, yes!
And so the work in telomeres, which then grew into collaboration..." and then we got to
work animating – for weeks.
But why stop at one video?
At the same time I was planning a more cinematic approach.
I wanted to walk through this four room set at the YouTube Space, somewhat like Birdman,
and explore memory and forgetting.
I even directed something, for the first time.
ever.
“Cool, have you had female directing mentors?”
"This is the first thing I've ever directed...
I have no mentors.
I don't know what I'm doing!
I have no idea.
Do you think it's going well, Christopher?"
"I think it's going great!"
And almost three months after I first wrote the two scripts, I’d finished my experiments.
But…
“What is the best way to teach people about science?”
What were my results?
Really, there is no one answer to this question.
There’s benefits to different methods of teaching and experience for different audiences.
So there’s no perfect formula.
But, in the process of making these videos I realised that if you stop questioning things
and thinking critically about what you’re creating, you’ll stop learning how to improve.
It’s just like how scientists work!
The process of science has so many connections to real life.
For me, experimenting with formats was really valuable in testing the boundaries of what
I can create.
No matter how old you are, you should never stop doing experiments.