Science on Video, Inspired by YouTube

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Nancy Joseph 06/01/2011 June 2011 Perspectives

A grapefruit watches TV news. A bird is the victim of mistaken identity. Tuberculosis invades an immune system, disguised as The Joker. Welcome to Biology 305, where students have created entertaining videos to teach about science. 

Hank Kim (right) films a portion of his video with friend Casey Timm. 

The course was the brainchild of Biology Professor Dee Boersma, who worries that today’s youth are increasingly cut off from the natural world. “Kids know all of the Pokemon characters but not the names of birds in their backyard,” says Boersma, Wadsworth Endowed Chair in Conservation Science. Looking for ways to reach a broad audience, Boersma turned to YouTube, a popular website where people can post and watch short videos. 

“Many of our students are already literate in making YouTube videos,” says Boersma. “That’s how they communicate with each other. I thought, ‘Why not encourage them to tell science stories, filled with good scientific information?’ There are many scientific concepts that can be presented in a three- to five-minute video.” 

Before planning a course, Boersma decided to learn filmmaking basics herself. Through a Fulbright grant, she studied documentary filmmaking at the University of Otago in New Zealand, as part of that university’s program in science communication. After returning to Seattle, Boersma turned to documentary filmmaker Jo Ardinger to coach her. 

Impressed with Ardinger, Boersma invited her to co-teach Biology 305: Science Communication, providing technical and storytelling expertise to supplement Boersma’s own scientific knowledge. 

Students taking the course—most of them science majors—were expected to arrive with a familiarity with video editing. The focus of the course was not how to make a video, but rather how to tell a science story, both accurately and engagingly. “A lot of our job was to help students hone their message down and teach them how to create characters to tell their story,” says Ardinger. 

Before tackling an independent project, students completed short assignments. For one, they created a video documenting the making of a cup of coffee. Another involved developing a character who goes through a dilemma of some sort. “That started them on developing a narrative arc,” says Ardinger, who adds that many students used the same character for their final project. 

Dee Boersma (left) and Jo Ardinger joined forces to teach a course  in which students produced engaging videos to explain science  concepts.

Eight weeks were devoted to the final project, a three- to five-minute video on a topic of their choosing. While the instructors were on hand to guide students and track their progress, much of the work involved learning by doing. 

Hank U-Seung Kim, a double major in biology and drama, was thrilled to learn about the class and eager to tackle an independent project. “I’d made a few fun videos with friends, but I’d been looking for something to bridge my drama and biology majors,” says Kim. “This seemed to be that bridge I was looking for.” 

A big fan of television programs about animals, Kim had in mind a video modeled after Kratt’s Creatures, a fun yet informative show aimed at young children. “I basically grew up watching shows like that,” recalls Kim. “Since I was a kid, I thought, ‘I wish I could do that—show people how cool animals are.’ I realized now I can.” 

For his video, Kim chose to focus on the hornbill, a bird he’d already researched for a previous course. He built his story around the hornbill’s identity crisis, explaining that hornbills are frequently confused with the toucan, also known as the “Fruit Loops” bird, even though the two birds live on different continents. Kim’s video has the feel of a children’s television show, with a bit of film noir thrown in as a detective is hired to investigate the bird’s true identity. 

Biology major Cindy Wu chose a less likely protagonist for her tale about citrus greening disease: an orange-juice-swilling grapefruit, who hears about the disease on a news broadcast and imagines a world without orange juice at breakfast. Citrus greening disease, Wu explains, has reduced the production of the orange industry in the U.S. by 30 percent. “I felt like it would make a good storyline,” she says. “It’s weird to think about a world without citrus fruit.”

Wu credits Boersma with helping her develop a citrus character for her video. The grapefruit, animated with claymation techniques, livens the message about a disease that is always fatal to infected trees. Wu believes that lessons learned on this project will benefit her as she pursues a science career.

“Dee really emphasizes how there’s a way to get someone’s attention even if you’re talking about something scientific,” says Wu. “I’m planning to go to graduate school, and I think it will be important to be able to explain my research and why it’s important to the general public.” 

Boersma and Ardinger have marveled at the range of ideas crafted by the class’s 18 students. Although some struggled with concepts that were too amorphous or complex for the short-video format, most found a way to bring science to life. 

“What really amazed me was how students evolved their ideas,” says Boersma. “Some changed their ideas completely, others refined theirs. They had to boil them down to a few key elements.” Adds Ardinger, “Everyone had their own creative take on it. They enlisted friends and roommates and parents. It was fun to see.”

Of course, creating that fun involved a lot of hard work. Several students, mostly non-science majors, dropped the class when they understood what was involved. Kim understands their apprehension. “The video making is not simple to do, but you can learn it,” he says. “But for the science content, your brain has to be tuned in a certain way, so you can draw out certain information. I think that’s the harder part.”

That ability to draw out information, says Boersma, is at the heart of the course. “If these students go into a field that is science related, their challenge will be to get their information out to the public. My goal is to help them better understand the process of sharing scientific information. These YouTube videos are just a start.”