Giving Compass' Take:

• Sophia Shrand shares her journey to create a show to engage children - particularly girls - in science to encourage participation in STEM.

• How can media and entertainment be used to encourage practical skills? How can teachers use and learn from these videos? 

• Find out about the need for representation for women in humanitarian media.

There is an art to making science fun and entertaining. Bill Nye has done it, and so has Neil deGrasse Tyson. Maybe now it’s time for a woman? For this episode of the EdSurge On Air podcast, we’re joined Sophia Shrand, host of the comedic YouTube show, “Science with Sophie.”

“Science with Sophie” mixes a bit of feminism with science, a difficult combination of things to put together in a comedic fashion. EdSurge talked with Shrand about her comedic history and how educators can learn from her work, making science entertaining.

I have degrees in neuroscience and theater. I got those degrees at the same time. I went to Northeastern University in Boston, and it was one of the only schools I visited that didn’t look at me like I had three heads when I said those are the things I wanted to do. [My degrees] seem really different from each other, but they are, I think, looking at the world from different perspectives to answer similar questions. Like, why are we humans here? What are we doing here? What does it mean to be human? Why do we do what we do?

I think neuroscience and theater are super complimentary, so I always loved to combine science and theater in different ways.

Read the full interview with Sophia Shrand about comedic science by Jenny Abamu at EdSurge.