Learning Science: Ep3 Transcript

LEARNING SCIENCE
Episode 3: “YouTube”

Speakers:

HN — Harrison Ngue (Co-host)

DL — Daniel Leonard (Co-host)

MW — Stephen “Martian Wolf” (Guest Interviewee)

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[Intro music.]

HN: Hello and welcome, everyone. My name is Harrison.

DL: And I’m Daniel.

HN: And this is the final episode of our three-part series on the history of science education.

DL: That’s right. Now in case you guys missed the first couple of episodes, do feel free to go

ahead and watch those before listening to this one. But to give you guys a quick run-down,

science education is a very broad topic. Now obviously most of you guys will probably think

about memorizing equations in physics, or doing those long labs in chemistry class, but the way

that science has been taught hasn’t always been the same. In the first episode, Nick, our third

member, and I talked about public science demonstrations, which were common occurrences

hundreds of years back, and still do happen today.

HN: And in the second episode, Nick and I joined a current high school teacher to discuss

current trends in pedagogical techniques and standardized testing in the more traditional K-12

classroom setting today.

DL: But today for our final episode, it’s only fitting that we look towards the future, or at least

what we expect a potential future might be for science education. And that specifically is the

Internet. And even more specifically, YouTube, which is basically a website where anyone can

upload a video for the world to watch.

HN: And, you know, Daniel, while I think YouTube is mostly known for its entertainment

videos, like this one:

[Audio recording from YouTube, “Mr. Beast”] I’m going to attempt to sit underwater for twenty

four hours straight because counting to a hundred thousand wasn’t hard enough. [1]

HN: Yep, shoutout to Mr. Beast. There’s also a lot of YouTubers that create educational content,

and this can range from simple addition,

[Audio recording from YouTube, “Khan Academy”] We have three lemons, we add one lemon,

we have four lemons. If we add another lemon, we have five lemons (or lime or a tart piece of

fruit, whatever you might want to say). [2]

HN: And there are even videos about advanced topics like partial differential equations.

[Audio recording from YouTube, “3Blue1Brown”] In that case, the equation looks quite similar,

but you include the second derivative with respect to the other spatial directions as well. [3]

HN: And not just math, you have videos about biology, about astronomy, chemistry, history,

etc., and I think something important to note is that it’s not just the fact that there happens to be

so many videos out there on the Internet and on YouTube, it’s the fact that these are legitimately

high quality videos that are really easily understandable, really easily digestible.

DL: Yea definitely, I can totally relate to that, and I think a lot of college kids can. I’ve even seen

memes about YouTube videos being lifesavers when you’re preparing for an exam because

there’s just this one concept that didn’t click for you until you found the perfect YouTube video

that explained it. Now, I mean, there are literally hundreds of thousands of educational videos on

YouTube. In fact, the actual statistic that they’ve determined is that five hundred hours of video

are uploaded to YouTube every minute [4].

HN: Woah.

DL: Now that’s across tons of different categories, but some of that is educational video. So this

is an unprecedented trend in science education that we’ve never seen.

HN: Right, I totally agree. These are totally unprecedented times for not only, you know, Internet

users, but for YouTube users. And I would even say that this is a new era for teachers in general.

And I’d say that because it’s the fact that YouTube creators have the option to monetize, or place

advertisements, on their videos. And, as you know, there’s obviously going to be some debate

about that. I mean, the good thing is that monetization does help a lot of people make YouTube

their entire careers.

DL: Yea, and as a result of that, there are a lot of big name YouTubers out there. I mean, real

celebrities. As one example, we have VSauce, this very famous YouTuber, who puts videos

about very interesting topics, like “What Does the World Look Like to Colorblind People?” And

ViSauce has 16 million subscribers [5].

HN: Woah.

DL: Meaning that 16 million people have told YouTube that they want to be notified every time

VSauce posts a new video. I mean, if we compared that to Harvard College, which has hundreds

of professors, teaching maybe six thousand or so students, I mean this is many orders of

magnitude bigger. It’s definitely not commonplace in history to have educators being this

famous. But at the same time, I do think that’s where a possible con of YouTube comes in.

Because you know, as you mentioned, Harrison, there’s the idea of monetization, but to make the

most they can off of ad revenue, they want their videos to get as many clicks as possible, and go

viral. So they might make the educational quality a second priority, which isn’t necessarily a

good thing.

HN: Yea, I totally get that. It’s kind of a tough dilemma for YouTubers to be in. And Daniel, I’m

sure you and I can sit here all day and talk about these problems, but it might be better for us to

bring in someone with a little bit more expertise than us.

DL: That’s true, I will say that, Harrison, that we do both have a little bit of expertise ourselves.

Harrison and I actually do have our own YouTube channels, but we did both start relatively

recently, so we’re both, you know, what you would call “small YouTubers.” We each have a few

hundred to a thousand subscribers, so while we’re both familiar with the YouTube platform, we

figured we should talk with our new friend, Stephen, who has a science channel called Martian

Wolf. So let’s go to the interview room.

[Transition sound.]

HN: Well, great to have you here, Stephen. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and

telling us a little bit about your channel, Martian Wolf.

MW: Sure thing. So my channel, called Martian Wolf, focuses mainly on discussing various

aspects in space exploration, general science, and a little bit of astrophysics but more towards the

technical sides, looking at NASA missions and some updates and news or discoveries and

whatnot. So I started the channel back in the beginning of 2018, I believe, so I was a senior in

my undergrad, but I knew that depending on where I went for graduate school and whatever

internships I would end up doing, I most likely was going to be traveling around a lot, so I

thought it’d be easier to create a YouTube channel to talk about some of these things.

HN: Yea, thank you. So, I was just curious, when you started your YouTube channel, was it

more of a side hobby or were you thinking further ahead and wanting millions of subscribers or

something?

MW: Even now, I would say it’s mostly a side hobby, but one of the first things when I made

these videos was... okay, I’m putting so many hours into making this video, how would that

equate to if I just went into a classroom and taught a bunch of kids? And kind of my metric of

success was... okay, if I’m putting ten hours into this, and then after a few weeks, my video

reaches ten hours of watch time, then you know that kind of meets the lower end of the criteria,

you know.

HN: That watch time metric makes complete sense.

MW: It’s just a good way to acknowledge that okay, you know, I could go out and teach this for

all these students all these times, but then the fact that okay, people are actually watching this,

you know, 60% of my viewers are staying until the end, like at least they’re learning something,

right? I hope.

HN: Exactly, exactly. So, on the note of making videos, do you want to talk through the process

of what it takes to create a video?

MW: Sure. So usually, I begin with an idea. So I usually spend a few days’ worth of researching,

you know, which is a couple of hours at a time, looking at different information, going all the

way to NASA sources or trying to find some of the publications that get into details. And then I

kind of tailor the actual research material to make it a little bit more interesting, such that, you

know, it’s digestible for someone that might not understand, or maybe there’s a topic that you

know, people aren’t necessarily familiar with spectroscopy, or something, maybe that’s a region

I can kind of talk about, what spectroscopy is. So I assess that, and then usually I film, which

filming usually takes the shortest amount of time, forty-five minutes to an hour and a half to film

a ten to fifteen minute video, just making sure you’re saying the right things, making sure all this

stuff. I don’t have a script, so I usually have an outline for what I’m doing, but I don’t keep a

specific script that I say. From there, editing which probably takes the most amount of time, so I

would say editing can take many hours, at least for my case, because I would take anywhere

from five to ten hours to edit it. So even for one video, it would only be ten to fifteen minutes,

it’s you know upwards of fifteen to twenty hours to create. I guess kind of keeping track of

questions and comments, because normally most views come within the first week or so that it’s

posted, so if there’s questions or if there’s updates to the information, then I keep track of that in

the comments.

HN: Oh, so you’re saying that after every video, you’re going into the comments and engaging

with the audience and actually fixing any errors that you might be making in your videos.

MW: So that’s some of the back and forth you get.

HN: I think that does tie in to my next point, because as Daniel and I discussed earlier, YouTube

is slightly deregulated in its educational quality, in that basically anyone can go out there and

post their own videos, however they want, without really any set rules as to how accurate that

information has to be. And for you, it seems like you spend a good amount of time doing

research at the start to make sure that, you know, the quality’s great. But I guess my question is,

how do you feel about the quality of educational content and the accuracy of it on YouTube?

And do you think there needs to be more or less regulation on it?

MW: So that’s an excellent point. I think one of the biggest reasons that this is… I guess not

necessarily a problem but more of a situation is… right, if I don’t spend that much time doing

research and I kind of make stuff up or whatever, then it could really just be wrong. And it’s not

educational, it’s just wrong. And I think it’s very specific to… it kind of puts the responsibility in

the user rather than the content creator. But for my case, I just try to make something that’s as

helpful as possible.

HN: That’s a really interesting perspective. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it that way where

it’s the user’s responsibility more than the creator’s responsibility. But, I guess now that you

mention that YouTube education and internet education is very tied together, something that I

wanted to talk about is that YouTube education is slightly different in that there’s this incentive

for YouTube creators to want their videos to get more clicks so that they can spread their

information more out there. So I’m just wondering: for you as a creator, do you ever feel the urge

to do away a little bit with the educational content and try to make your videos a lot more

entertaining instead to try to get as many views as possible?

MW: Umm… there’s definitely a drive to do that, or there’s definitely an incentive to do that,

obviously. Because if you wanted to make YouTube your full-time career, which I don’t know if

necessarily that’s my goal at all to do that… but if that’s kind of your ambition to do, to become

a full time YouTuber, then obviously you want to tailor your videos to your content or your

content to the algorithm, which can be entertaining, but then for educational purposes then it

might not necessarily be the most educational. I don’t know, you guys said that you guys have

smaller YouTube channels. What do you think about it? What are your opinions?

DL: I feel like starting a YouTube channel in college is a good move in that you’re kind of

already in this zone of “I have to be very careful with the research that I’m doing because my

school requires it”, so then when you start a YouTube channel, you kind of put that same

expectation on yourself, or at least I have. So every single video, in the description, I have a

pastebin link to all the sources that I used in that video. I try to be very careful with that. So it’s

something that... it’s on the YouTuber’s responsibility of themselves, that they have to hold

themselves to that standard because no one else is...

HN: I completely agree with that, Daniel, but at the same time, I do think that it’s kind of

interesting that you said that it’s the responsibility of the video creators to make sure that their

content is reliable, while Stephen thinks it’s the viewer’s responsibility. So I guess, Daniel or

Stephen, if either of you wanted to elaborate more on what exactly you mean?

MW: See, the issue is that you would hope that the YouTuber would hold more responsibility

because they’re the ones creating the content. However, in reality, as the user, you’re also the

one that’s taking in that content, so I would… I mean I guess from our perspectives, we’re kind

of saying that the creators themselves should be holding themselves responsible for what they

create, but at the same time, there’s no way to stop someone from making something that’s just

completely wrong.

DL: Yeah, it is an interesting question….

MW: It’s a hard question.

HN: Right, I totally agree. And Stephen, we’re running a little bit short on time, so I just wanted

to wrap this up with a couple of final questions. So, you know, a lot of our viewers might want to

do YouTube in the near future, or are already thinking about starting a YouTube channel, so

would you have any advice for them?

MW: It’s definitely a process… You have to keep making things. You have to learn how to grow

from it. Make sure that you’re enjoying it, and even if it’s not growing or if it’s staying the same,

if it’s something that you enjoy doing, then that’s the whole purpose of it. I mean, it’s not gonna

be my career. I mean, unless you guys plan on becoming the next Mark Rober or something, then

keep me in mind, but, uhmm… [laughter]

HN: Yeah, but honestly, I feel like that’s a great place to be.

DL: Yeah, I think it can be exciting. I mean, there’s a bit of uncertainty that can be scary in, like,

“I don’t know what I’m doing, but…”

HN: The way that I like to put it is that if there’s anything that 2020 has taught us, there is

nothing certain but certainty.

DL: [laughter] You have to, yeah..

MW: Uncertainty is guaranteed

DL: That’s true, yeah.

HN: Well, thank you Stephen so much for taking the time to speak to Daniel and I. We really

appreciate it, and I’m sure our viewers learned a lot about the life of a Youtuber, basically.

Listeners, don’t forget to check out Stephen’s channel on YouTube. It’s called Martian Wolf.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy it and learn a lot. Thanks again Stephen. And since this is the final episode,

Daniel and I wanted to finish off by thanking some people. We’ll be right back.

[Transition sound.]

HN: So first of all, thank you to you, the listener, for following us throughout all three episodes.

DL: And we also wanted to thank our Episode 1 interviewees: Dr. Sara Schechner, Daniel

Rosenberg, and Wolfgang Rueckner.

HN: And a special thanks to our Episode 2 and 3 interviewees: “Auntie P” Paraluman and

Stephen “Martian Wolf”.

DL: As well as the teachers for this course, Dave Unger and Shireen Hamza, for their incredible

help in teaching us how to make a podcast.

HN: And of course, thank you to Daniel, thank you to Nick…

DL: Thank you Harrison, yes!

HN: We had a really good time making this podcast, and thank you to all of our classmates for

providing feedback throughout this entire process.

DL: Absolutely.

HN: And on that note, we hope you all enjoyed listening and following us along throughout all

these three episodes. And for the final time, let’s say it together: “Keep on learning!”

References

[1] MrBeast. (2018, August 24). Spending 24 Hours Straight Under Water Challenge. Retrieved December 18, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_im_hGxGRk

[2] Khan, S. (2010, January 19). Addition 2. Retrieved December 18, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2L3JFOqTEk

[3] 3blue1brown. (2019, April 21). But what is a partial differential equation? | DE2. Retrieved December 18, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly4S0oi3Yz8

[4] Vsauce. (n.d.). Retrieved December 18, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/c/vsauce1/about

[5] Clement, J. (2020, August 25). YouTube: Hours of video uploaded every minute 2019. Retrieved December 18, 2020, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/259477/hours-of-video-uploaded-to-youtube-every-minute/