;CIENCE& TECHNO LOGY
A NEW SCIENCE CHANNEL Organizations and scientists experiment with YOUTUBE as an outreach tool CELIA HENRY ARNAUD, C&EN WASHINGTON
SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS face a challenge in communicating with the younger generation. Some organizations are dipping their toes in the waters where that generation swims—on the Web. Museums, scientific societies, and even scientific teams are starting to post videos on YouTube, the popular Google-owned online video website. Last year, Carol Lynn Alpert and her coworkers at the Museum of Science, Boston, heard about a phenomenon that was sweeping the Internet—videos of fountains created by combining Diet Coke and Mentos candy as part of a theater act. Although the videos' creators at Eepybird.com (part of the Oddfellow Theater, Buckfield, Maine) ask that their videos not be posted on websites, numerous copies have been posted anyway on YouTube, where they've been watched millions of times and have inspired imitations and parodies. The team at Eepybird. com has even been nominated for a daytime Emmy Award in the new category of broadband variety. That copycat phenomenon is "reminiscent of the whole notion of constructivist or inquiry-based science education," Alpert says. "People may have thought they were making funny videos, but they were practicing science. They were experimenting with different variables, seeing what might result, and recording it for others to see." Alpert thinks YouTube attracts a "countercultural, skeptical, playful audience," which she sees as "in line with the true nature of science." She was curious about whether her team could harness this new venue as a way to reach audiences that might not visit a science museum. At that time, her team was grappling with ways to convey the concepts of nanoscale science and engineering. In particular, they were struggling to find the best way to explain just how small a nanometer is. They decided to turn it into an audience-
participation activity. They created three short videos to incorporate in a museum kiosk and let visitors vote for their favorite. They also posted them on YouTube. "Here's this great way of reaching lots of people that hasn't been available to us before," Alpert says. "You're not restricted The Nano Car (Segment One)
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to having lots of money or being part of a big broadcast organization. Anybody in the world can make a video and post it on YouTube." THAT VERY OPENNESS can make it tough for videos from reputable science sources to stand out from the background noise. Ginger Pinholster, director of the Office of Public Programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, worked with Braun Film & Video to make a 12-minute video about the effects of climate change on the people of Shishmaref, Alaska, as the kickoff for a town hall meeting at the AAAS annual meeting. The society didn't want the video to languish MORE ONLINE
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when it could reach a broader audience. YouTube seemed like the perfect answer. But the timing of the posting of AAAS's climate-change video to the site illustrates science fare's uphill struggle for YouTube viewers. The "Farting in Public" video was posted the same week as the climate-change video. As of June 18, the AAAS video had been watched more than 2,000 times, whereas the less savory video had been viewed more than 3 million times. Among the lessons Pinholster learned from her YouTube experience was to keep videos short and sweet. The site's restrictions on video length and file size meant that Pinholster needed to shorten the original film. The carefully edited version AAAS posted squeaked in under the 10-minute limit at 9 minutes 59 seconds. If she were making the video VIEWER'S CHOICE again, Pinholster Voters picked the would cut its length "Minicoopers and in half. "The medium Cheerleaders" is best suited for video as their short experiences," favorite way of visualizing she says. how small a Pinholster sent nanometer is. a professional film crew and senior writer to Shishmaref to capture the footage. "You don't need to go to that extreme" if your only goal is posting on YouTube, she says. Her office is exploring the possibility of making much more basic movies related to forthcoming papers in the journal Science. Recently, she posted a second AAAS video about evolution on YouTube. While AAAS has looked to YouTube for broad distribution of its science videos, others are using the site simply for the convenience of delivering videos to a small target audience. The Sciencenter, Ithaca, N.Y., posts videos to let other science museums know about its traveling exhibits. "YouTube is a great way for people who are interested in renting one of our exhibitions to see a little bit of what it's about," says Charles Trautmann, executive director of the Sciencenter. "They're intended to give a potential renter a sense of the experience visitors would have when they take part in an exhibition." The general public is a secondary audience for the Sciencenter's videos. The hope is that any people who see the videos will be "excited about the experiences they can
Want to check out the videos on YouTube? Links to the videos mentioned in this story can be found at www.cen-online.org. AA
JUNE 25, 2007
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