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YouTube’s ‘Physics Girl’ discusses using videos in science outreach Feb. 28

Dianna Cowern, from YouTube’s The Physics Girl, will be featured at a talk on Thursday, Feb. 28, in the Stevenson Center, Room 4309.

The event will begin at 4 p.m. and is open to the Vanderbilt community. It is the Department of Physics and Astronomy’s 2019 Guy and Rebecca Forman Lecture in Science Education.

YouTube was originally conceived as an entertainment medium for watching pet, gaming and music videos. In recent years, however, educational channels have gained momentum on the platform, some garnering millions of subscribers and billions of views.

The Physics Girl YouTube channel is an educational series from PBS Digital Studios that Cowern created. Using The Physics Girl as an example, Cowern’s Vanderbilt talk will examine what it takes to start a short-form educational video series.

It will look at the channel’s demographical reach, best practices for effective physics outreach, and survey how online media and technology can facilitate good and bad learning. The talk will show how videos are a unique way to share science and enrich the learning experience, in and out of the classroom.

Contact: Shane Hutson, (615) 343-9980
shane.hutson@vanderbilt.edu