Abstract Detail

Education and Outreach

Edwards, Molly B. [1].

Science IRL: a YouTube channel that’s here to show you what being a scientist is like, in real life!.

Science In Real Life (IRL) is an educational YouTube series whose mission is to cultivate, especially in young people, enthusiasm for and a sense of belonging in science. In each episode, producer & host Molly Edwards visits a guest scientist in their lab, where they do an experiment together and discuss their research. This format allows several magical things to happen on the way to accomplishing our mission: 1) Viewers get to see textbook science concepts come to life. You probsably had to memorize the steps of photosynthesis in high school, but what does it actually look like for a scientist to study photosynthesis in the lab? We’ll show you! 2) Our audience can witness the humanity and joy of scientists at work. Popular culture still infuriatingly perpetuates damaging stereotypes of scientists, and when you do catch rare glimpses of real scientists on the news, we usually have our serious science faces on to announce the very important discovery we made. On Science IRL, you’ll get meet a Harvard scientist and learn about their impressive research, but you’ll also get to see them do a happy dance around the lab when their experiment works. 3) Our audience can meet scientist role models who represent their identities. Some of the most important things for us to consider as science communicators are whose stories we’re telling and whose voices we’re elevating, because those choices will have a major impact on whether our viewers feel like they belong in STEM. To that end, funding from ASPB has allowed us to produce 10 episodes featuring the work of women plant biologists at leading research institutions around the country, and our subsequent work has been and will always be crafted through the lens of diversity & inclusion. Right now we’re working on a project with Team Halo, a UN initiative whose mission is to foster trust in Covid-19 research. We are producing four episodes featuring Covid researchers from all over the world, and received a Vlogbrothers sponsorship from Hank & John Green to support this work. I am graduating in December 2021 and will be working in science communication full-time and am so excited to be expanding Science IRL. At Botany I would love to connect about collaborating – maybe Science IRL could be the Broader Impacts for your next grant proposal!

1 - Harvard University, Biolabs Room 1119, 16 Divinity Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States

Keywords:
Science IRL
YouTube
outreach
broader impacts.

Presentation Type: Poster
Session: P2, Education and Outreach Posters
Location: Virtual/Virtual
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021
Time: 5:00 PM(EDT)
Number: P2EO002
Abstract ID:197
Candidate for Awards:None