0:04 I want to start off tonight with a two-step experiment.
0:08 For step one, I've got a two-liter bottle here.
0:10 It’s half-filled with liquid nitrogen that’s negative 320 degrees Fahrenheit.
0:15 As you can see, it's violently boiling off into a gas,
0:18 just like boiling water does on a hot stove,
0:21 because to this freezing-cold liquid nitrogen,
0:23 the nice comfy air in this room is super hot.
0:26 But here’s the catch:
0:28 the gas form of nitrogen occupies 700 times the volume of the liquid,
0:33 so you’ve got to be really careful,
0:34 as it’s turning into a gas you don’t trap it in a small container
0:38 -- like if the lid was screwed on top here.
0:40 So then for step two,
0:42 I'm going to go ahead and screw the lid on top.
0:45 And when I do, if everything goes according to plan,
0:47 the contents of this bottle should experience what we refer to at NASA
0:50 as an “energetic,
0:51 spontaneous, rapid disassembly.”
0:55 (Laughter) It's going to explode.
0:57 (Laughter) All right, here we go.
1:00 Put that on.
1:02 OK, now, this is going to be -- Oh, you know what?
1:05 What the heck, might as well throw these on top.
1:09 (Laughter) This is going to be real boring until it's not.
1:13 If you don't like loud noises, cover your ears.
1:15 But according to my calculations, things could get real interesting here in about three,
1:21 two, one.
1:29 One.
1:30 (Laughter) One.
1:30 I said one.
1:30 I’m just kidding -- it’s really impossible to actually calculate exactly -- Whoa!
1:33 (Cheers and applause) Let’s go!
1:42 (Applause) How's your jet lag now?
1:47 (Laughter) Alright, my apologies, my friends in the front row, you should be warned,
1:52 it will get worse before it gets better.
1:56 (Laughter) I'm like science Gallagher up here.
2:00 So a lot of people would look at that -- Thank you, yeah.
2:02 You keep those as souvenirs, actually.
2:04 Please don’t throw them back the whole time.
2:08 A lot of people look at that and be like, "Oh, neat,
2:10 the ping-pong balls exploded."
2:11 But what actually happened is so much cooler.
2:14 Because as more and more of that nitrogen turned into a gas,
2:17 those gas molecules got more
2:19 and more crowded as they pushed back on the plastic molecules comprising the walls
2:24 of the two-liter bottle.
2:26 And then eventually, the pressure got so great, it got so crowded,
2:30 the walls of the two-liter bottle lost the game of molecular Red Rover,
2:34 and all the gas came rushing out.
2:37 But where could it go?
2:38 Because it can’t go down or to the sides -- trash can's too thick.
2:43 Therefore, the only option is to go up,
2:46 and since all the ping-pong balls are in the way,
2:48 they just happen to go along for the ride.
2:51 But here's the really cool part.
2:53 This is exactly how cannons fire cannonballs.
2:58 It's how Nerf blasters fire Nerf darts.
3:02 It's how T-shirt cannons fire T-shirts.
3:07 And for my friends in the front row,
3:09 it’s how straws fire spit wads.
3:11 I'm just kidding.
3:14 (Laughter) The trick for all those is you simply build up enough pressure,
3:18 you suddenly release it in one direction
3:20 and plop whatever you want in the way to go along for the ride.
3:23 And I love when I get like, that aha moment.
3:26 When I understand the world around me with a new framework.
3:29 But even more than that, I love giving that to other people.
3:32 This is why, for the last 15 years, once a month,
3:36 I've uploaded a free science
3:37 or engineering video to YouTube to my now 75 million subscribers who also have
3:43 a taste for those aha moments.
3:45 And the videos -- (Applause) The videos can range anywhere from an elephant toothpaste
3:52 volcano that sets a world record to a satellite that's orbiting above us right
3:57 now that we built,
3:58 that you can upload your picture to for free,
4:01 and it will display it on a screen
4:03 and then give you a selfie in space with the Earth photobombing you.
4:09 (Laughter) Or even a soccer goalie moves back
4:11 and forth at 40 miles an hour,
4:13 and then we track your shot so effectively,
4:16 not even the world's greatest player can score on it.
4:21 (Laughter) Sorry, Ronaldo.
4:24 (Laughter) And 16 billion views later,
4:27 what I've learned is I can't teach you if I don't have your attention.
4:32 But if I can get your attention with something remarkable, well,
4:35 now I suddenly have something to attach the learning to.
4:39 This is why it kills me if someone's like, "Oh,
4:40 I don't like science because it's boring."
4:43 But at the same time, I get it.
4:44 Because instead of learning about pressure the way I did with these ping-pong balls,
4:48 a lot of the times it’s something like this -- with curiosity-murdering phrases like,
4:55 "consider a rigid container of volume V."
4:59 (Laughter) It’s a freaking trash can, all right?
5:03 (Laughter) And don’t get me wrong,
5:04 there is a time and a place for equations,
5:06 but for a generation that is growing up on TikTok and YouTube,
5:10 you have to make it matter with something
5:12 that gets them to lean forward in their seat.
5:15 Something that ignites a little curiosity fire in their brain.
5:19 And we need that today more than ever.
5:22 I like to call this style of teaching “hiding the vegetables.”
5:27 (Laughter) For example, it's really boring
5:28 if you make a video about the scientific method.
5:30 But what's not boring is
5:32 if you make a video about a 15-ton Jell-O pool you can actually belly
5:36 flop onto.
5:37 And in the process,
5:38 I'm going to sneak in all six steps of the scientific method.
5:43 What's also really boring is memorizing an equation about terminal velocity.
5:47 But what's not boring is you point out
5:49 that squirrels are one of the only mammals
5:51 that can survive a fall from any height at their terminal velocity.
5:56 And then, in an effort to keep them from stealing all your birdseed,
5:59 you set up an eight-part Ninja Warrior obstacle course in your backyard,
6:03 and in the process,
6:04 what you might find is they will voluntarily demonstrate this principle for you.
6:12 (Laughter) It's a very true story.
6:15 (Laughter) There's also a ton of super boring microcontroller tutorial videos online.
6:20 So when someone came by and stole a package from my porch,
6:23 I decided to dedicate a year of my life to making the world's least
6:27 boring microcontroller tutorial video.
6:30 Step one: you make a bait package like this.
6:32 And on the outside, you have something like a picture of headphones.
6:36 But inside, instead of headphones, you have this contraption.
6:39 And at the top there is a cup
6:41 that spins a pound of the world’s finest glitter.
6:43 You have four phones that will record,
6:45 then upload their footage to the cloud in real time,
6:47 and as the pièce de résistance:
6:49 a very uncharitable amount of fart spray.
6:55 (Laughter) That's foreshadowing.
6:57 And then step two: you have the thief come by,
7:00 and when he lifts the lid,
7:02 takes it home -- of course -- it sprays the glitter followed by the fart spray.
7:06 I should point out, by the way,
7:09 this whole video was sort of a modern-day homage to the greatest film of
7:13 a generation.
7:14 I'm talking, of course, about "Home Alone."
7:17 And so the thief here, who’s pretending,
7:21 is none other than my buddy Macaulay Culkin.
7:26 (Laughter and applause) And so then for step three:
7:27 what you and Macaulay are going to do is you're going to make 20
7:29 of these,
7:30 put them on porches all across America,
7:33 and it won't take long before you start getting back some incredible footage like
7:37 this.
7:45 (Video) Hello.
7:45 Machine: Keep the change, you filthy animal.
7:56 Person 1: Whoa!
7:56 Machine: Hello.
7:56 You guys give up?
7:58 Or are you thirsty for more?
8:03 (Fart spray) Operation “Whoever Smelt It, Dealt It” initiated.
8:03 (Laughter) Person 2: Oh.
8:03 Machine: Operation "Butt Trumpet" initiated.
8:03 (Laughter) Person 2: Oh.
8:03 (Fart spray) Person 2: Alright, alright.
8:03 Alright, we get it, OK.
8:03 Smells like... in here.
8:04 (Laughter and applause) Mark Rober: By the way, I was watching.
8:04 And when that thief was about to lift the lid on the glitter bomb,
8:04 not a single one of you was looking down or was on your phones.
8:04 I had your undivided attention.
8:04 And that makes for the most fertile brain soil,
8:04 because learning is best when it’s attached to a visceral experience.
8:04 Basically, if you feel something here, you remember it here.
8:04 This is why memorizing a boring equation is hard.
8:04 But you know, remembering
8:04 that song you sang
8:04 as a teenager that made you feel all those feels,
8:04 that’s easy -- and you remember every single lyric, you know, 30 years later.
8:04 And to be fair,
8:04 I didn’t come up with this style of teaching -- all great teachers know
8:04 this.
8:04 For me, it was Mr.
8:04 Malloy.
8:04 He was my high school statistics teacher.
8:04 Hello, Mr.
8:04 Malloy, if you're watching this.
8:04 And he was great,
8:04 not just because he had a killer Doctor Evil impression -- (Laughter) Or because,
8:04 and I mean this with all sincerity,
8:04 he had way better hair than whatever I was trying to figure out here.
8:04 (Laughter) He was great because he made it matter.
8:04 Like encouraging us to use what we learned in statistics to predict where our
8:04 arch-rival soccer team was going to kick their penalty kicks.
8:04 And it worked.
8:04 He was so good at attaching emotions to learning.
8:04 He was so good at hiding the vegetables.
8:04 And the thing is, with a really good teacher, their impact is immeasurable.
8:04 Just like Mr.
8:04 Malloy impacted his students and we're now, in turn, impacting the world.
8:04 That's why I love teachers.
8:04 I think they have the most important job on the planet.
8:04 In fact, please.
8:04 (Cheers and applause) I've said for like a decade,
8:04 my dream job is to be a middle-school science teacher,
8:04 and I will be.
8:04 But until that time -- and buckle up,
8:04 because this is the first time the world is hearing about this -- for
8:04 the last two and a half years,
8:04 myself, with a team of about 50 people,
8:04 including some of the best science teachers in the country,
8:04 have been secretly working on a full science curriculum,
8:04 and it uses all the tricks I’ve learned from the past 15 years on
8:04 how to hide the vegetables.
8:04 (Cheers and applause) And the reason we're doing this is
8:04 because it breaks my heart
8:04 when I see teachers who get paid salaries,
8:04 as a society, we should be ashamed of,
8:04 spending their own money on resources that totally suck.
8:04 (Applause and cheers) So it's got everything they'd need,
8:04 from banger videos the kids are going to beg to rewatch,
8:04 that demonstrate the science -- yes, that is a wrench in an MRI machine,
8:04 because how else am I supposed to talk about the invisible magnetic fields all
8:04 around us?
8:04 It's got ready-to-teach classroom slide decks
8:04 that are super clean
8:04 and easy to use.
8:04 And then it’s got these really thought-out curated science demos where the kids get
8:04 to viscerally interact with the science
8:04 that the teachers can make just with stuff they have lying around their classroom.
8:04 The idea is that together we teach the classroom,
8:04 and the teacher becomes the hero,
8:04 as we engage the students in real science and engineering they actually care about.
8:04 We're starting with grades three through eight.
8:04 It exceeds all the state science standards, but most importantly,
8:04 it’s exactly what science class is meant to be: super freaking fun.
8:04 (Video) Your teacher and I are about to launch this class into hyperdrive.
8:04 Let’s go!
8:04 We’ll build stuff,
8:04 ask a ton of questions and even smash a few things along the way.
8:04 If everything goes according to plan,
8:04 you'll see the world around you in an entirely new way.
8:04 Kristin Bell: Oh my God, that’s crazy.
8:04 MR: Buckle up.
8:04 It’s going to be a wild ride.
8:04 It's basically magic, but science.
8:04 Which makes it cooler than magic.
8:04 Mr.
8:04 Beast: I knew it felt too light.
8:04 MR: What do you guys want to do now?
8:04 (Cheers and applause) The world has evolved,
8:04 and teaching science is long overdue for disruption.
8:04 I'm happy to report
8:04 that of the teachers who are assigned to teach the pilot lessons to their
8:04 students,
8:04 because of our ability to explain complicated things simply
8:04 and for our very unique experience in solving the science motivation gap for 15
8:04 years,
8:04 95 percent of the teachers said that when we're done,
8:04 they would want this to be their full science curriculum.
8:04 And so the idea is you combine incredible teachers with incredible resources to get
8:04 this explosive output,
8:04 sort of like you'd expect to see
8:04 if you combine this bucket of boiling water with this trash can of freezing-cold
8:04 liquid nitrogen.
8:04 (Laughter) So to all those teachers out there in the trenches,
8:04 I want you to know reinforcements are on the way.
8:04 In fact, a bunch of the videos and lessons are already available right now,
8:04 and we'll finish the rest over the next four years,
8:04 because I know this will be the most important thing I do my whole
8:04 life.
8:04 And even though this is going to cost us $60 million to make,
8:04 my official declaration tonight is every single lesson plan, every teacher training,
8:04 every original class demo will cost exactly zero dollars
8:04 and be 100 percent free for all teachers forever,
8:04 as we work to ignite those brain fires of curiosity in the next generation
8:04 of big problem solvers.
8:04 (Cheers) Thank you so much.
8:04 (Cheers and applause) Thank you.
8:04 (Cheers and applause) Thank you.
8:04 (Applause)
