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isn’t this sensationalism part of the problem when it comes to media-based science education? “It might seem paradoxical,” I tell him, “that, here you are, one of the biggest YouTube science video producers out there, and you’re also somewhat of a skeptic of video education, an advocate of many traditional methods.” “I think it comes down to objective,” Muller replies. “If your objective is to replace teachers to change the school system and all that, overthrow it using steady online curriculum made of videos, it’s just, I think, woefully ineffective.” “Teachers play a fundamental role in education,” he maintains. “You have to know them on a personal basis. You have to be accountable to them. You have to work with them, be inspired by them, get their mentorship. You have to feel like someone cares about you, instead of just slogging away by yourself.”
Through Veritasium, Derek Muller presents approachable visual representations of complex scientific phenomena such as gyroscopic precession.
So, uniquely armed with an understanding of just how video can be used to transmit knowledge, Muller set out on a quest to popularize physics on the internet, with great success. As this is written, Muller’s two Veritasium (a play on veritas, the Latin word for truth) channels have a combined subscriber count of four million. Muller’s videos have many of the trademarks of shareable online content. They’re highenergy, positive, well-produced, and funny. But what separates them from much of the other online content out there is their use of Muller’s research on science video education. That is, instead of hand feeding viewers information about science, Muller’s videos are more contemplative. They make use of a lot of classic, Socratic techniques. In fact, they often begin with a question, like “Why do the most
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INNOVATION & TECH TODAY | WINTER 2016
venomous species live in the warmest climates on earth?” or “Why are there sometimes spikes on my ice cubes after I freeze them?”
Still, because of his prior research, Muller can claim that video (when used intelligently) can make a difference as a teaching tool: “If you want little nuggets of inspiration, and the spreading of ideas that people have never thought about, then it can serve that purpose very well. I think as long as you’re clear about what your purpose is and that you’re using the attributes of the medium to achieve that.”
Standing before a packed auditorium at this year’s annual NSTA STEM Forum & Expo, Muller was able to get the attention of the entire audience with a fairly humble prop. “What’s going to happen when I drop this?” he asked, holding a slinky out at arm’s length. “Will it all fall at once? Will the top fall before the bottom? Perhaps the bottom will fall before the top? Or maybe the bottom will rise up to the top first?”
Looking through the comments sections (normally a bad idea on YouTube) of several Veritasium videos, what I find more frequently than anything else are questions: “But what if this happens?” “What if you do this next?” Viewers seem genuinely curious, perhaps because they’re genuinely confronted by the new ideas. In this way, Muller’s methods take us back to the root of scientific thinking – the challenge of not knowing – that began for so many of us in the backseat of a car as we asked our parents, “Why?…Why?…Why?”
It’s an experiment featured in several of Veritasium’s viral videos. In one of these (and in true YouTuber fashion), Muller ups the ante by dropping a giant slinky out of the window of a skyscraper (I won’t reveal what happens). It makes for a fantastic effect. But, as discussed,
You can find Derek Muller’s YouTube channel by searching “Veritasium.” Muller is also slated to appear as a correspondent in the new Netflix series Bill Nye Saves the World. Our full interview with Muller is available at www.innotechtoday.com