Cosmic Queries – Science Is Cool

About This Episode

On this episode of StarTalk Radio, we’ve partnered with PocketLab by Myriad Sensors to bring you a very special episode where Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice answer Cosmic Queries for an audience of thousands of teachers all across the map during the Science Is Cool 2 virtual conference. 

To start, we explore how to encourage students who might not see the value in science and education to engage in science and education. Neil shares why tapping into a student’s curiosity is the best way to get engagement. We discuss how students can prepare themselves when faced with conspiracy theories in the real world. What is actually going on in a conspiracy theory? Neil breaks down what they all have in common. He also tells us about the time he interacted with someone who didn’t believe we went to the Moon.

Find out how we can put the COVID-19 pandemic into the cosmic perspective. Neil reminds us why the cosmic perspective is not always uplifting, but always meant to help you see things through a different lens. We investigate what role planetariums can still have in educational outreach even though the doors are still shut. 

Then, PocketLab co-founder Dave Bakker joins the conversation as we explore what the educational system has gotten right and gotten wrong in the past few decades. Neil tells us why science should not be taught as a pile of facts, and why focusing classes on syllabi and memorization is detrimental. All that, plus, after being asked if he had any inspiring teachers during his education, Neil shares an intimate and passionate response explaining why he never had teachers that lifted him up because the system doesn’t focus on the students that aren’t in the educational spotlight.

Thanks to our Patrons Sonya Loeffler, Christopher Lee Knapmiller, Jerald M Johnson Jr, Jessica Bingham, Marcus Jildermark, Ben Barenz, Jerry Saunders II, and Darrin Chambers for supporting us this week.

NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free.