Hey science teachers make it fun Tyler DeWitt

let me tell you a story it’s my first

year as a new high school science

teacher and I’m so eager I’m so excited

I’m pouring myself into my lesson plans

but I’m slowly coming to this horrifying

realization that my students just might

not be learning anything this happens

one day I just assigned my class to read

this textbook chapter about my favorite

subject in all of biology viruses and

how they attack and so I’m so excited to

discuss this with him and I comment and

I say can somebody please explain the

main ideas and why this is so cool

there’s silence finally my favorite

student she looks me straight in the eye

and she says the reading sucked and then

she clarified she says you know what I

don’t mean that it sucks I mean that I

didn’t understand a word of it it’s

boring um who cares and it sucks

these sympathetic smiles spread all

throughout the room though and I

realized that all of my other students

are in the same boat that maybe they

took notes or they memorize definitions

from the textbook but not one of them

really understood the main ideas not one

of them can tell me why this stuff is so

cool why it’s so important

I’m totally clueless I have no idea what

to do next

so the only thing I can think of is say

listen let me tell you a story the main

characters in the story are bacteria and

viruses these guys are blown up a couple

million times

the real bacteria and viruses are so

small we can’t see them without a

microscope and you guys might know

bacteria and viruses because they both

make us sick but what a lot of people

don’t know is that viruses

can also make bacteria sick now the

story that I start telling my kids it

starts out like a horror story once upon

a time there’s this happy little

bacterium don’t get too attached to him

maybe he’s floating around in your

stomach or in some spoiled food

somewhere and all of a sudden he starts

to not feel so good maybe he ate

something bad for lunch and then things

get really horrible as his skin rips

apart and he sees a virus coming out

from his insides and then it gets

horrible when he bursts open and the

army of viruses floods out from his

insides if H is right if you see this

and you’re a bacterium this is like your

worst nightmare but if you’re a virus

and you see this you cross those little

legs of yours and you think we rock

because it took a lot of crafty work to

infect this bacterium here’s what had to

happen a virus grabbed onto a bacterium

and it slipped its DNA into it the next

thing is that virus DNA made stuff that

chopped up the bacterial DNA and now

that we’ve gotten rid of the bacterial

DNA the virus DNA takes control of the

cell and it tells it to start making

more viruses because you see DNA is like

a blueprint that tells living things

what to make so this is kind of like

going into a car Factory and replacing

the blueprints with blueprints for

killer robots the workers still come the

next day they do their job but they’re

following different instructions so

replacing the bacterial DNA with virus

DNA turns the bacteria into a factory

for making viruses that is until it’s so

filled with bio viruses that it bursts

but that’s not the only way that viruses

infect back to

area some are much more crafting when a

secret-agent virus infects a bacterium

they do a little espionage here this

cloaked secret-agent virus is slipping

his DNA into the bacterial cell but

here’s the kicker it doesn’t do anything

harmful not at first

instead it silently slips into the

bacterias own DNA and it just stays

there like a terrorist sleeper cell

waiting for instructions and what’s

interesting about this is now whenever

this bacteria has babies the babies also

have the virus DNA in them so now we

have a whole extended bacterial family

filled with virus sleeper cells they’re

just happily living together until a

signal happens and bam all of the DNA

pops out it takes control of these cells

turns them into virus making factories

and they all burst a huge extended

bacterial family all dying with viruses

spilling out of their guts

the viruses taking over the bacterium so

now you understand how viruses can

attack cells there are two ways on the

left is what we call the lytic way where

the viruses go right in take over the

cells on the left is the lysogenic way

that uses secret agent viruses so this

stuff is not that hard right and now all

of you understand it but if you’ve

graduated from high school I could

almost guarantee you seen this

information before but I wet I bet it

was presented in a way that it didn’t

exactly stick in your mind so when my

students were first learning this why

did they hate it so much well there were

a couple reasons first of all I can

guarantee you that their textbooks

didn’t have secret agent viruses

didn’t have horror stories you know in

the communication of science there is

this obsession with seriousness it kills

me I’m not kidding I used to work for an

educational publisher and as a writer I

was always told never to use stories or

fun engaging language because then my

work might not be viewed as serious and

scientific right I mean because God

forbid somebody have fun when they’re

learning science so we have this field

of science that’s all about slime and

color changes check this out and then we

have of course as any good scientist has

to have explosions but if a textbook

seems too much fun it’s somehow

unscientific now another problem was

that the language in their textbook was

truly incomprehensible if we want to

summarize that story that I told you

earlier we could start by saying

something like these viruses make copies

in themselves by slipping their DNA into

a bacterium the way this showed up in

the textbook it looked like this

bacteria phage replication is initiated

through the introduction of viral

nucleic acid into a bacterium that’s

great

perfect for thirteen year olds but

here’s the thing there are plenty of

people in science education who would

look at this and say there’s no way that

we could ever give that to students

because it contains some language that

isn’t completely accurate for example I

told you that viruses have DNA well a

very tiny fraction of them don’t they

have something called RNA instead so

professional science writer would circle

that and say that has to go we have to

change it to something much more

technical and after a team of

professional science editors went over

this really simple explanation

they’d find fault with almost every word

I’ve used and they’d have to change

anything that wasn’t serious enough and

they’d have to change everything that

wasn’t 100% perfect then it would be

accurate but it would be completely

impossible to understand this is

horrifying you know I keep talking about

this idea of of telling a story and it’s

like science communication has taken on

this idea of what I call the tyranny of

precision you can’t just tell a story

it’s like science has become that

horrible storyteller that we all know

who gives us all the details nobody

cares about we are like oh I met my

friend for lunch the other day and she

was wearing these ugly jeans I mean they

weren’t really jeans they were more kind

of like leggings but like I guess

they’re actually kind of more like

jeggings like but I think you’re just

like oh my god

what is the point or even worse science

education is becoming like that guy who

always says actually right you want to

be like oh dude we have to get up in the

middle of the night and drive a hundred

miles in total darkness and that guy’s

like actually it was 87 point three

miles and you’re like actually shut up I

just trying to tell a story because good

storytelling is all about emotional

connection we have to convince our

audience that what we’re talking about

matters but just as important is knowing

which details we should leave out so

that the main point still comes across

I’m reminded of what the architect Mies

van der Rohe said and I paraphrase when

he said that sometimes you have to lie

in order to tell the truth I think the

sentiment is particularly relevant to

science education now finally I am I’m

often so disappointed when people think

that I’m

advocating a dumbing down of science

that’s not true at all I’m currently a

PhD student at MIT and I absolutely

understand the importance of detailed

specific scientific communication

between experts but not when we’re

trying to teach 13-year olds if a young

learner thinks that all viruses have DNA

that’s not going to ruin their chances

of success in science but if a young

learner can’t understand anything in

science and learns to hate it because it

all sounds like this that will ruin

their chances of success this needs to

stop and I wish that the change could

come from the institutions at the top

that are perpetuating these problems and

I beg them I beseech them to just stop

it but I think that’s unlikely so we are

so lucky that we have resources like the

Internet where we can circumvent these

institutions as from the bottom up

there’s a growing number of online

resources that are dedicated to just

explaining science in simple

understandable ways I dream of a

Wikipedia like website that would

explain any scientific concept you can

think of in simple language any middle

schooler can understand and I myself

spend most of my free time making these

science videos that I put on YouTube I

explain chemical equilibrium using

analogies to awkward middle school

dances and I talk about fuel cells with

stories about boys and girls at a summer

camp the feedback that I get is

sometimes misspelled and it’s often

written in Lal cats but nonetheless it’s

so appreciative so thankful that I know

this is the right way we should be

communicating science there’s still so

much work left to be done though and if

you’re involved with science in

anyway I urge you to join me pick up a

camera start to write a blog whatever

but leave out the seriousness leave out

the jargon make me laugh make me care

leave out those annoying details that

nobody cares about and just get to the

point how should you start why don’t you

say listen let me tell you a story thank

you

you