YouTube & Science Content Follow Us: Comments 0 YouTube & Science Content About Ever wondered whether a science video on YouTube, Vimeo or similar does the best job it can in teaching students science? PhD candidate Petr Lebedev from the School of Physics at the University of Sydney is researching exactly that. For Petr, it’s not just the content that matters… it’s also about whether the video grabs the viewer’s attention enough to create deeper questions and reflections on the science behind the visuals. Hosted by Ben Newsome More Information About the FizzicsEd Podcast Watching a science video is one thing, but truly learning from it is another. In this episode, we sit down with Petr Lebedev to discuss the cognitive science behind physics education. We explore how to design digital content that moves beyond passive consumption to spark active reflection, and what it’s like researching for the legendary Dr Karl to ensure scientific accuracy meets high-energy entertainment. About Petr Lebedev Petr Lebedev is a PhD researcher in Physics Education at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the intersection of multimedia and cognition—specifically, how video design can encourage viewers to reflect on their own misconceptions. Beyond his academic work, Petr has served as a researcher and fact-checker for Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s show on the Discovery Channel, where he specialised in translating complex data into engaging narratives. He is a passionate advocate for science communication that prioritises deep understanding over simple rote learning. Connect: @ptrlbdv on X (Twitter) Top Learnings: The Science of Science Media The Value of Productive Confusion: Petr highlights research showing that the biggest learning gains occur when students are initially confused. Effective physics videos don’t just provide clear answers; they first address misconceptions to challenge the viewer’s existing mental models. Multi-Level Pitching: Great science communication should be pitched at various levels simultaneously. By including layers of humour and depth, a single piece of media can engage a five-year-old, a high-school student, and an expert all at once. Combating the “Close Enough” Bias: Many learners fail to correct their understanding because they perceive their intuitive explanations as being “close enough” to the fact. Petr’s research suggests that requiring students to commit to a specific answer and reflect on their reasoning is essential for genuine conceptual change. Education Tip: The “Commit to an Answer” Strategy. Incorporate Petr’s research methodology into your lessons by using a “commit to an answer” phase. Before showing a science demonstration or a solution video, have students write down their prediction and the specific reasoning behind it. This creates a psychological commitment that makes the eventual reveal far more impactful, as students are forced to reconcile the actual result with their stated prediction. Associated Resources Multimedia Learning Principles Explore how to improve how you use slides, videos, and images in your teaching through proven educational frameworks. Read More → Dr Karl’s Science Insights See how professional science communication balances entertainment and accuracy by exploring the work of Petr’s colleague, Dr Karl. Visit Dr Karl → Want to bring hands-on science to your school? Book an award-winning workshop or show that builds fundamental thinking skills through high-energy, interactive experiments. Browse School Workshops Audio Transcript Published: May 5, 2018 APA 7 Citation: Newsome, B. (Host). (2018, May 5). YouTube & Science Content [Audio podcast transcript]. Fizzics Education. https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/podcast/fizzicsed/youtube-science-content/ Copy APA Citation Ben Newsome CF is the recipient of the 2023 UTS Chancellor’s Award for Excellence and a Churchill Fellow. He is a global leader in science communication and the founder of Fizzics Education. [00:00:04]Petr Lebedev: So I think the biggest thing is, and this is a clichĂ©, but knowing your audience. You need to pitch the, what you’re saying needs to be pitched at the right level. And that doesn’t mean that it can’t be pitched at numerous levels all at the same time. When someone watches Shrek, a five-year-old kid can appreciate the humour, but also their parent can also have a decent time. [00:00:32]Ben Newsome: And it’s with that frame of mind that Petr Lebedev is working on a PhD to work out just exactly how science education videos can not just teach content knowledge, but encourage reflection as well. This is going to be an interesting chat. [00:00:44]Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome. [00:01:01]Ben Newsome: Welcome again to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. I reckon that you’ve probably been on YouTube once or twice, right? Let’s be honest, some of you might have actually been on YouTube in the last five minutes prior to turning on this podcast. Here’s the thing: YouTube is being used by students all over the globe as a research tool to learn about science and all sorts of other stuff. The thing is, is that stuff that’s being presented useful and relevant to that learner? How is it handling different audiences of different ages? [00:01:31]Ben Newsome: That’s exactly what Petr Lebedev is doing at the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. His PhD research is around how to create physics education videos that don’t just teach the content knowledge—and hopefully that content knowledge is correct—but also, does it encourage deeper reflection by the learner? So Petr has a bit to do with this project. He’s got lots and lots of YouTube videos to review, and hopefully, it’ll be very interesting to find out what comes out of his research. Today is all about what’s out there in the media landscape and what that means for the learner. [00:01:59]Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. [00:02:01]Petr Lebedev: It’s been quite hectic. I’m one year into my PhD, so starting my second year now and it’s just insane. It’s just data collection after data collection, it’s human ethics after human ethics. But you know, and teaching and all that stuff, so it’s very busy, but it’s fascinating stuff. I love it. [00:02:21]Ben Newsome: It is. Now, you do actually have a fascinating role and I love your topic, but there’ll be people who don’t know what you get up to. So Petr, tell us, what do you do? [00:02:28]Petr Lebedev: Currently, I am a physics education PhD student. I’m part of a group at Sydney University that’s trying to figure out how to teach physics better as a very general, broad thing. My specific interest is in teaching physics through multimedia, so primarily focusing on YouTube. And I’m not just focusing on the content knowledge or the conceptual understanding of physics, I’m also really interested in how people think about physics and how they analyse sources and how they reflect and how they change their minds. So that’s currently what I’m focusing on. [00:03:15]Ben Newsome: What led you down that path? Because I can see why there’s serious value in doing a PhD in this, but what made you think, you know what, I’ve got to go check this out, I’ve got to find out these answers. [00:03:28]Petr Lebedev: Well, we can go a little bit further back and just go what got me into physics in the first place, because that’s where it starts. I’m interested in this because I think physics is incredibly valuable. And I was very lucky that both of my parents were physicists and they still are physicists. [00:03:51]Ben Newsome: What do they do, by the way? [00:03:52]Petr Lebedev: My dad did his PhD in plasma, and my mum is a seismologist. And both of them are working over in Perth, one’s at Curtin, one’s at CSIRO, doing geophysical modelling stuff. It’s all about rock physics, it’s like material science with fluid dynamics and lots of cool hard differential equations. [00:04:15]Ben Newsome: So you were basically doomed from the beginning, right? [00:04:18]Petr Lebedev: Totally. [00:04:21]Ben Newsome: Okay, so you obviously are clearly into physics, you’ve got a background in physics with your family, so you got into physics education, I’m guessing, from there? [00:04:29]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, so I did an undergrad and I did my honours in geophysics because, why not? I was really into the, one, I’m obviously really into the physics, but also there’s the planetary side. I absolutely love planetary science. I think our solar system is absolutely fascinating and we know very little about it. So when I finished my honours, it was either do a PhD studying meteorites, which is really cool, or go over to Sydney and start this PhD with my supervisor, Professor Manjula Sharma. [00:05:15]Petr Lebedev: And the story with that kind of goes back to this guy called Derek Muller, who you might recognise as Veritasium. [00:05:20]Ben Newsome: Yes. [00:05:21]Petr Lebedev: Yes, exactly. So he did his PhD with Manju. He started in 2004, that was before YouTube existed. And his PhD was on how do you use short, linear multimedia, so how do you use short videos to teach physics effectively? Because he was obviously into documentary making and Carl Sagan and all these people and wanted to do that for a living. So that was his PhD. He wanted to figure out how to actually use these tools to not just get clicks, to actually teach people something. And I am a big fan of Derek and have been lucky enough to work with him a little bit recently. [00:06:07]Ben Newsome: He achieved that more than just a little bit. [00:06:11]Petr Lebedev: For sure. He’s doing amazingly well for himself and having a huge positive impact on the world. I’m not necessarily saying that I’m trying to emulate that because I think people are different. I can’t be Derek 2.0. I’m just going to be Petr 1.0. But the impact that he’s had on so many people I think is wonderful. And if I could in the future do something similar, I think that’ll be a life very much well lived. So yeah, I guess the physics education side of things, I’m really just really into science and I’m really into talking about science and that’s kind of the logical extension of that. [00:07:01]Ben Newsome: Love it. And I couldn’t agree more. I’ve sort of bitten that apple and well swallowed it, very much running a space that does it too, in our own little way. And I totally agree, and I love the idea of just thinking from a point of view of serious volume. Something like YouTube and all that type of thing is a huge thing, especially nowadays, but the fact that you can have genuine impact on someone in a place that you’ll never ever go to and you’ll never ever get to meet that person, yet you can actually spark an interest is just amazing. And I suppose that actually dovetails nicely with what you’re actually studying now. [00:07:38]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, I think that’s the huge appeal as well. But what I also want to say that the stuff that you’re doing, the stuff is obviously reaching lots and lots of people, but you’re also talking to students directly. And I also think that’s incredibly worthwhile. It’s really cool. I’m just taking this opportunity to say thanks for your work. I think it’s really cool. [00:08:03]Ben Newsome: Oh gosh, if people are just driving the car or walking the dog going, “Oh gosh, they’re just going to have a minute or two to pat each other’s backs!” But thank you very much. It is a lot of fun. I’m always curious about how people are impacting their audiences and their world, regardless of whether they’re in a classroom with 30 kids every single day, because that is a deep impact, that’s working with people very directly for a very long time and watching them grow, or in our case, often being parachuted in. And in your case, it’s actually via distance even further. I guess we haven’t gone down this line to any real degree, and I’d imagine that it’s a two-edged sword. You can either do it really well or really poorly. I guess just out of interest, I don’t want to name names, but what have you seen where people have tried but they genuinely not really helped? [00:09:00]Petr Lebedev: Sure. I think there are a lot of people that do a great job, but there’s also some people that just preach to the choir, so to say. There’s certain public figures in science that seem to attract just a particular crowd. I think the atheist community is quite popular for that. I think the only people that read books written by famous public atheists are people who are already, you know… if that makes sense? [00:09:44]Ben Newsome: I actually get what you mean. We were lucky enough to be involved in helping produce the Innovation Games last year and there’s a bit of this stuff coming up again for Sydney Olympic Park. One of the prime directives, and I love what Mike Bartlett was saying with this, was we need to reach the people who don’t want to be reached. [00:10:00]Petr Lebedev: Totally. [00:10:01]Ben Newsome: And I went, that’s just it. That is exactly the point. Because I often worry about the choir. Eventually, you might as well just be off the same songbook, right? [00:10:09]Petr Lebedev: Exactly. But I think it’s a very, very hard thing to do. Reaching people that don’t want to be reached is incredibly difficult. So I totally understand why people… it’s very comfortable to be in your own echo chamber. [00:10:22]Ben Newsome: Yeah, we call it work science by stealth. [00:10:24]Petr Lebedev: Totally. [00:10:27]Ben Newsome: But obviously on the flip side, you’ll have people who are just completely nailing it. So what have you seen out there that absolutely works? [00:10:37]Petr Lebedev: In terms of specific people or…? [00:10:41]Ben Newsome: More about in regards to your own studies, like you’re evaluating what works, what doesn’t. In terms of things that you’re going, you know what, this is just exactly perfect. [00:10:54]Petr Lebedev: I think the biggest thing is, and this is a clichĂ©, but knowing your audience. You need to pitch the, what you’re saying needs to be pitched at the right level. And that doesn’t mean that it can’t be pitched at numerous levels all at the same time. When someone watches Shrek, a five-year-old kid can appreciate the humour, but also their parent can also have a decent time. And I think you can also do that with science videos or science shows. I saw Brain Candy, which is Adam Savage and Michael Stevens, so MythBusters and Vsauce. And they were absolutely brilliant because it was pitched at maybe about three different levels. The comedy and the explanations worked on the level of a five-year-old, the comedy and explanations worked for the level of a high schooler, and then there was more difficult stuff for people who are older and there were more political jokes and all those kind of things. [00:12:00]Petr Lebedev: So I felt like I have two degrees in this, and still I felt like my understanding of Bernoulli’s principle was a little bit more solidified because it was such a beautiful, wonderful demonstration. But also I felt entertained. And I also knew that a five-year-old would have been entertained as well and they would have learned something. So I found that really inspiring. [00:12:31]Ben Newsome: It’s a really hard balancing act, isn’t it? Because I agree, it’s almost like double entendres without anything bad within it. I’ve got the older audience, I’ve got the younger audience, I’ve got the people who are just beginning to grasp the topic, then I’ve got the experts in the audience as well. Especially in a public event. It’s a tightrope and a half to try and walk. [00:12:47]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, totally. It’s a razor’s edge. [00:12:49]Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Now, I suppose you’d experience this a bit with some of the work that you do with Dr Karl. Tell us a bit about that. [00:12:54]Petr Lebedev: Yeah. That’s actually an interesting story. I got very lucky last year where I just moved to Sydney. I’m originally from Perth and the first week, I get to the Physics building and I get shown to where my office is. Day one of PhD, fantastic, super exciting. And then I look down the hallway and there’s Dr Karl. And I’m like, wait, what? I didn’t even know that Karl was at USyd when I started my PhD. But yeah, he’s an honorary associate here and he has his office and that office is two doors down from my office, which is very cool. [00:13:41]Ben Newsome: So if people are overseas, if you don’t happen to be in Australia and not quite sure who Dr Karl is, think like Bill Nye the Science Guy for Australia, if that kind of helps. [00:13:50]Petr Lebedev: Totally. It’s that kind of level. And so I knocked on his door and I came and said hi, and I was like, “Hey, I’m a new PhD student. I’m really interested in science communication.” And we had a lovely chat. And then he was like, “Hey, I need a researcher and a fact-checker on this new show that I’m doing with Discovery. Do you want to help?” And I was like, yes! Absolutely insane. Couldn’t say yes faster. [00:14:23]Ben Newsome: What topics did you have to research? Just out of interest. [00:14:26]Petr Lebedev: It was Dr Karl’s Outrageous Acts of Science, which was on Foxtel last year. I’m sure you’ll be able to find copies of it floating around somewhere. And it was basically everything. It was this very wide range of topics. It was this very Discovery show that focuses on explosions and tarantula stings and all these kind of the wacky zany science that gets a lot of clicks. So that was actually really interesting to work on, because you’re trying to include as much valid scientific content into something that is primarily entertainment. The goal of that show isn’t education, the goal of that show is to have people watch the Discovery Channel. [00:15:21]Ben Newsome: Yeah, and a lot of these are really small sound bites. It’s something that myself and Holly at work too have had to deal with in terms of often we’ll be asked to do a weather cross for Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10, and you’ve only got about 20 seconds. And you want to do something that’s actually decent without completely invalidating how science works, in an entertainment context. I suppose the format in a Discovery Channel programme like that, you got a bit longer, but geez you haven’t got that much longer when you actually look at the seconds ticking by. [00:15:53]Petr Lebedev: No, you don’t. And there were a lot of comedians on the show as well, so the focus was very much like, this is meant to be funny, so you’re constantly trying to find the angle that’s funny and interesting. And there’s all these limitations from just the nature of TV. [00:16:15]Ben Newsome: Actually speaking of comedians, it’s funny how these chats always just take different paths. But I remember actually listening to some professional public speakers saying who should you get trained to be a really good public speaker? And they suggested, to be honest, straight up, get a comedian to train you. And you think about having to stand on stage, you’ve got no props, it’s just you and a microphone, to be able to get a topic across where they’re actually going to laugh and they don’t know you, it’s a tough deal. I suppose now you’re working with comedians on a show like that, that would have been a rigorous process. [00:16:51]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, I actually think that’s brilliant advice. I think if anyone’s taking the one thing away from this podcast, I think that’s the gold nugget right there. I think being a comedian is incredibly hard. And I think that’s something that more science communicators can learn from. I think we sometimes get too focused on the data. And the data is important, truth is important, don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely not saying that’s not important, I’m just saying that people respond to humour and people respond to stories. And if you as a science communicator are not telling stories, if you don’t have something to draw people in, well they’re going to tune out. [00:17:40]Ben Newsome: Oh, absolutely. [00:17:41]Petr Lebedev: That comes back to the previous thing that you’re saying, how do you get people engaged who don’t want to be engaged? It’s by telling stories. It’s by telling interesting stories that people can relate to. [00:17:57]Ben Newsome: I absolutely agree. I was doing a connection to a school in Tennessee Saturday morning, it was from 1:00 AM to 4:30 AM because I’m a masochist. But anyway, we’re doing these connections, it was a lot of fun, I just love doing them. And I always love starting with the time discussion. Usually they’ve been prepped, they know it’s early in the morning or late at night. But then I love just simply, and this has got nothing to do with the science whatsoever, it’s just simply notation, is: kids, can you just tell me what date it is? And in this case for them it was the 9th of the 3rd 18. And so they’d tell me the date and so I’d write 3/9/18 knowing full well that’s exactly how the notation is over there, month, day, year. And then I go, all right, so I’m at 1:00 AM for me, so it’s the next day, so what day would it be for me kids? And they all go, it’d be the 10th! And so what I write then is 10/3/18. And they all freak out and a kid put his hands up and goes, are you telling me it’s in October? And I totally get it and the poor kid was just not used to seeing it. I go no, no, I circle the month and the two different ways of noting it down and go, look, there are regional differences. You might be communicating the same information back and forth, but you’re actually still speaking a different language if you actually look deeper. And it’s a really nice way to starting off a science programme of, look, we’ve done the time zone thing and it’s nice to get to know each other, but I get the kids to stop and think about what I’m presenting because what I’m presenting might be sort of similar to what you’ve been talking about, but maybe we need to look deeper in the first place. [00:19:28]Petr Lebedev: I love that. I absolutely love that. [00:19:30]Ben Newsome: It’s a lot of fun too, it freaks people out. I must say at 1:00 in the morning though, I kind of sometimes just mess it up completely. But anyway, I digress. [00:19:40]Petr Lebedev: The biggest takeaway from Derek’s thesis was that the biggest learning gains happened from the videos that confused people a little bit. It’s not the ones where the information was clear and concise and easy to understand. It’s good that the explanation is clear and concise and easy to understand, but maybe the first little bit you need to have a little bit of confusion. And if you can address a misconception, I think that’s really worthwhile. There’s a video that would be really great to put in the show notes of him walking around with a book and a hard drive and going, “Hey, so put your hand on the book and put your hand on the hard drive. Tell me which one’s colder.” And obviously everyone says that it’s the hard drive. [00:20:36]Petr Lebedev: And then just confusing people going, “Well, no, look, they’re the same temperature. They’re at room temperature right now. Just one is more conductive.” And then that’s your in to talk about thermodynamics and thermal physics and conductivity and all these other things. [00:20:56]Ben Newsome: Oh speaking of preaching to the choir that we were talking about earlier, that’s exactly what we do for our properties of materials programme. I actually talked about this way back in Episode 2 when I was talking with Isabelle Kingsley from the Powerhouse Museum. I love this demo, in fact people at work are sick of me talking about it, but I love the demo where, as opposed to a book and a hard drive, we just use two baking trays, one is rubber, one is steel. And you get the kids to feel both ones and then you put ice on them. And what happens is the ice actually melts ridiculously fast on the cold feeling steel baking tray because it conducts heat. It’s really good at it. I love that thing and that’s kind of cool because as opposed to a hard drive and a book you can just walk around campus and get anyone off the street. That’s cool. [00:21:40]Petr Lebedev: For sure. But yeah, that was Derek’s thesis, the outcome was to teach physics effectively in this multimedia format, you got to have misconceptions. One of the ways is misconceptions. And I’m definitely butchering a 200-page thesis by trying to sum it up in 20 seconds. So it’s worth reading. It’s actually really not a difficult read at all. [00:22:09]Ben Newsome: Actually, I don’t think you’re butchering it, and considering that your job in some ways, especially with Dr Karl, is to create quick sound bites around learning, that’s perfectly fine what you just said. [00:22:17]Petr Lebedev: I try, but I think it’s also important to remember that there is nuance. As soon as you create a sound bite, you lose nuance. And sometimes it’s useful and sometimes it’s worth just having a really long form discussion about something. [00:22:35]Ben Newsome: So speaking theses, obviously eventually at the end of your PhD, a tome will be written at some point which hopefully people read and use. What are you hoping to discover in your own research? [00:22:45]Petr Lebedev: So I’m really looking at how people are changing their minds. And the reason that it’s kind of taken on its own thing where it started off as purely about physics, and I really like that it is currently about physics because physics is incredibly apolitical. We don’t necessarily have political biases towards this kind of stuff. But the research that I’m conducting right now and the surveys that are going out live today are, it’s about, so you watch a video and then in that video there’s four questions. And you answer, you write down your four questions. And then afterwards you watch the video where there’s the solutions to the four questions. [00:23:36]Petr Lebedev: And what I’m asking the students to do is write down whether they have or haven’t changed their minds after watching the solutions video. So we’re trying to capture the reasons, like what did they find compelling about this explanation, what they didn’t find compelling about this explanation? And from the preliminary tests that we did last year, we got some interesting results where there was a lot of people saying that they didn’t change their answer because they thought their explanation of the physics was close enough, or that the explanation that was given was wrong, or that there was something wrong with the video, that it was a trick question. So there was all these different categories of reasoning for not accepting the answer that was given to them. And I think that kind of critical reflection is really interesting and trying to figure out what are the salient points of creating something that encourages positive reflection. [00:24:55]Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Grab a copy of our new book, Be Amazing: How to Teach Science the Way Primary Kids Love, from our website. Just search “Be Amazing book.” It’s available in hard copy and ebook. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S. [00:25:08]Ben Newsome: Yeah, and I kind of think that what you’re doing extends well beyond physics education. It just does. It extends across education full stop, and it can even go further than that. Just anyone trying to teach people something. It doesn’t have to be informal education at all. What is your impact, does the audience get what you’re trying to say? It’s probably a good thing. [00:25:27]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, totally. And the reason that I find it interesting within the context of physics education is because again, there’s no politics involved. The answer is this whether you like it or not. And yet there’s still people who are still not changing their answers for reasons that we might find strange. So I find that interesting because I think one of the skills that I want to get out of this is I want to be able to talk to people who have different ideas and opinions about the world. And I want to be able to convince them that look, global warming is real. It’s a real issue that we should be talking about. And AI is great and it’s really interesting and it’s really worthwhile, but we should also be talking about investing into safety research. [00:26:22]Petr Lebedev: And convincing people that don’t want to be convinced, you know, global warming deniers really don’t want to be convinced that global warming is real for a number of reasons. But that’s kind of the people that we should be trying to reach, that’s the people we should be trying to talk to. And you can’t do it in an angry or dismissive way because that’s not going to help anyone, that’s not going to change anyone’s minds, that much we know. And the details are the most interesting part. [00:26:54]Ben Newsome: Agree. And actually I was speaking with some ABC broadcasters around this very issue that everyone’s trying to grapple with in media, which is simply how do we get people out of their echo chambers? Let’s be honest, we all, if you’re not on Facebook, I get that, it’s probably wise not to be on Facebook, but if you’re on social media you obviously follow the people you want to follow and you don’t follow the people you don’t. And so you start to create your own reality in some ways. And therefore your own media and therefore your own opinions and judgments around those. So it’s a real issue to grapple with, especially in a democratic society that should understand all points of view before coming to decisions. [00:27:32]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, totally. And as much as I’m a huge fan of YouTube, I think the platform in a lot of ways changed directly changed my life. Derek putting out the incredible videos that he does and Destin from Smarter Every Day and Henry from MinutePhysics and all these guys, they really encouraged me to do what I am doing now. But at the same time, the recommendation algorithm is so echo chamber based. If you watch a video about cats, you will get more and more cats in your news feed in your recommended videos. And that’s fine for cats, and that’s fine for science, that’s a good thing for science. But it’s not necessarily great if you’re going down a political rabbit hole that just gets more and more extreme. Or a very extreme version of science reality which is not actually reality at all. [00:28:31]Ben Newsome: Exactly. [00:28:32]Petr Lebedev: So I think the YouTube algorithm is trying to maximise time on site, and it’s trying to maximise the amount of time that people watch the videos. And it doesn’t really care about the content of those videos. And I don’t necessarily think that’s the way to a healthy society. [00:28:51]Ben Newsome: I feel that considering that Google’s involved with YouTube now and the “do no harm” mantra is part of their thing, I mean this could be naive in some ways, but I wouldn’t be surprised, especially with AI and machine learning, to be able to pick up what’s actually within the content over time. I mean obviously it needs some serious crunching of data here, but I kind of wonder if there is actually a way out eventually at some point where they can actually work out well, what is the content of this stuff that people are consuming and is it real? But who knows. I mean that is for the quantum computing people to work out, that’s so much data. It’s crazy. [00:29:26]Petr Lebedev: It is a lot of data and it is crazy. And there was an interesting case with Brady Haran, who runs so many channels, but one of them is called Numberphile and it’s absolutely fascinating. And this was a video about the very early stages of film and how film cameras were developed and how they were used and all the science behind that. And it’s an educational video. But in one of the clips that was shown was an anatomical video of a person walking. And even though there’s no explicit content there, the YouTube algorithm flagged that as nudity. And it’s kind of like, well of course it flagged it as nudity, it thinks that it’s a naked person, which in some ways it kind of is. [00:30:22]Petr Lebedev: But there’s a fine line between that is obviously an educational video. Any person that watches it knows that it’s an educational video. But an algorithm doesn’t. So that video got demonetised and blocked, even though it really shouldn’t have. It’s back online now because a human sorted it out. But I think we’re still a long way to go with the YouTube algorithm. [00:30:53]Ben Newsome: Yeah, and I’m certainly not qualified in any way to make any comments of any near future at all. My head space is way in the distant future. [00:31:02]Petr Lebedev: For sure, for sure, for sure. Absolutely. [00:31:04]Ben Newsome: Man, we went down a weird rabbit hole. [00:31:06]Petr Lebedev: And it’s not the first time and won’t be the last time too, by the way. [00:31:08]Ben Newsome: But that’s okay, that’s all part of it. Hey, just out of interest, obviously there’ll be some people who’d want to emulate what you’ve been getting up to in science communication. Hey, they may even want to write for Dr Karl or whatever it is. What sort of advice would you suggest to people listening who may want to go down that particular rabbit hole? [00:31:26]Petr Lebedev: Study hard. Like really just I’m serious, there are certain hoops that are really hard to jump, especially if you’re in high school or university right now. And want to have an interesting life and an interesting career, I really do recommend that you get above a certain grade so people kind of look at you more seriously. As annoying as that is and as much as I hate that because I really think we should be judging humans on how they are as humans rather than their academic record. The academic record really does help. If I didn’t have the marks that I had in my last couple of years, my first couple of years of uni were terrible, but my last couple of years were a lot better. I wouldn’t have been able to get into a PhD at University of Sydney. And then I wouldn’t have been able to hang out with Dr Karl and do work for him and do all of these interesting things. [00:32:21]Petr Lebedev: So I think that’s number one is your grades need to be decent. And the other thing is talk to people, be interested in stuff, create your own thing. If you’re interested in science communication, have your own podcast, have your own YouTube channel. And when you apply for a job as a science communicator, you have a little bit of a portfolio going. You’re not going to be just a kid that goes, “Hey, I’m really interested in science communication, I really want this job.” You’re going to be the person that goes, “Hey, I’m really interested in science communication and here’s my portfolio. Here’s the work that I’ve been doing for the last year. This is kind of proof that I care about this.” So I think just putting in the work, there’s no way around that. [00:33:18]Ben Newsome: Yeah, that’s right. And being avidly curious over the top of that means that the work doesn’t feel like work, it’s sort of play. And then you end up in this situation where things are almost out of hand. At least on our front where we got so much stuff going on that I genuinely just enjoy doing crazy stuff in the middle of the night purely because hey, I just want to try that too. [00:33:37]Petr Lebedev: For sure. But I also don’t want to… I am ridiculously privileged, and I want to acknowledge that privilege, being all of the things that I am in our society. And also the fact that both of my parents are physicists and all these kind of things. So it is privilege and it is luck, and I’m definitely not saying that I got here only because of hard work. I didn’t. It was a lot of luck and a lot of support from others. [00:34:08]Ben Newsome: It’s usually a confluence of many things and actually some studies of business leaders who have made some serious impacts in Fortune 500 companies and all that rest, they do attribute a portion of that themselves. They say it themselves outright, “I needed a sliding doors moment for this to happen, and it did and I took it.” And that’s actually true, that’s part of it as well. [00:34:25]Petr Lebedev: Totally, totally. [00:34:26]Ben Newsome: So thanks very much for popping on Petr, over this podcast. Now obviously I really like some people if they wanted to be able to get in touch with you, have that ability. So how will they be able to get in touch? [00:34:36]Petr Lebedev: I have a Twitter account. So that’s P T R L B D V, which is my name without all the vowels, which I thought was a good idea at the time and now I realize now that I have to spell it out on a podcast it’s not such a great idea. [00:34:54]Ben Newsome: That’s ok, we’ll put that in the show notes, that’s no problem at all. [00:34:57]Petr Lebedev: Fantastic. [00:34:58]Ben Newsome: No worries. And I really do encourage people to get in touch with Petr because the work that you’re doing is of serious value and hopefully once it’s published and out in the blue yonder, that people then pick it up and then go further with it again, which would be really handy. [00:35:12]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, hopefully, hopefully. Well thank you so much for having me on. And yeah, please do contact me. If you’re listening to this, say hi on Twitter. [00:35:21]Ben Newsome: Absolutely, he won’t bite. He’ll be all right. All right. Well thank you very much Petr. Have a fantastic afternoon. [00:35:26]Petr Lebedev: Right back at you. Thank you. [00:35:28]Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Grab a copy of our new book, Be Amazing: How to Teach Science the Way Primary Kids Love, from our website. Just search “Be Amazing book.” It’s available in hard copy and ebook. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S. [00:35:52]Ben Newsome: Well there you go. That was Petr Lebedev who is doing a fantastic job in making sure that all the stuff that’s out there might actually be useful to the learner in terms of science education videos. It’s going to be very interesting to hear exactly what his final research will end up looking like and how that might shape education going forward. Now the thing is, there is lots of university research going on into education in science. And one of our past guests, Dr Simon Crook, has been doing a bit of that too. [00:36:18]Dr Simon Crook: A former colleague of mine had this phrase, “engage me or enrage me”. So if they’re engaged, you’ve won out. You’re not going to have to deal with as many classroom management issues. [00:36:31]Ben Newsome: Don’t you love that phrase? “Engage me or enrage me.” That’s exactly how we should be thinking about our audiences in general, our classes. As a student, wouldn’t you hate sitting there just watching going, “Oh, this is just not for me.” And worse, the people who just keep on droning on and they won’t get to the point. It’s so important and Dr Simon Crook has been doing a lot of work with educators right across Australia through his efforts and his company called Crooked Science. Funny name, but certainly very serious when it comes to science education and the context in the classroom. So go ahead and check out Episode 29 of the Fizzics Ed Podcast and know that there’s still more to come. You’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome for Fizzics Education, and you’ve been listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. I’ll catch you next week. [00:37:11]Announcer: You’ve been listening to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Subscribe to us on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new Be Amazing book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S. [00:37:37]Announcer: This podcast is part of the Australian Educators Online Network. AEON.net.au. Frequently Asked Questions Discussion points summarized from YouTube & Science Content podcast with AI assistance, verified and edited by Ben Newsome CF. What is the primary focus of Petr Lebedev’s PhD research? Petr is researching physics education through multimedia, specifically focusing on how YouTube videos can be designed to encourage deeper reflection. He investigates how viewers analyse sources, engage with content, and why they choose to change—or not change—their minds after being presented with correct scientific explanations. Why does Petr suggest that confusion can be beneficial for learning? Drawing on research by Derek Muller (Veritasium), Petr explains that the greatest learning gains often come from videos that initially confuse the viewer by addressing a misconception. When a video is too clear and concise without challenging the learner’s existing mental models, it may not lead to significant conceptual change. What is the “Shrek” approach to science communication? This refers to pitching content at multiple levels simultaneously. Just as a movie like Shrek contains layers of humour for both children and adults, effective science media (like Brain Candy) provides simple explanations for novices while including deeper nuances or sophisticated jokes for experts and older audiences. How did Petr’s work with Dr Karl influence his views on science media? Working as a researcher and fact-checker for Dr Karl’s Outrageous Acts of Science on the Discovery Channel, Petr had to balance scientific accuracy with the high-energy demands of entertainment. This experience highlighted the challenge of maintaining valid content within the short sound bites typical of modern television. What advice does Petr have for aspiring science communicators? He emphasises two main pillars: maintaining a strong academic record and building a proactive portfolio. Petr suggests that having your own podcast or YouTube channel provides tangible proof of your passion and skills, making you a more competitive candidate than someone who is simply “interested” in the field. Extra thought ideas to consider The “Close Enough” Learning Barrier Petr’s research found that students often refuse to change their minds because they feel their incorrect explanation was “close enough” to the truth. How can educators design assessments or demonstrations that more clearly define the boundaries between a near-miss and a scientifically accurate understanding? Storytelling over Data Petr suggests that science communicators should learn from comedians to avoid becoming too focused on raw data. In a classroom setting, how might the use of narrative and humour help students retain complex physics concepts better than traditional data-heavy lectures? The Ethics of the Algorithm If YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is designed to maximise watch time rather than educational accuracy, what is the responsibility of science educators to teach students how to navigate their own “echo chambers” and critically evaluate the sources they encounter online? Want to bring hands-on science to your school? Book an award-winning workshop or show that builds fundamental thinking skills through high-energy, interactive experiments. Browse School Workshops Hosted by Ben Newsome Other Episodes Episode: 133 " Expand their imagination! " Comments 0 Podcast: Imaginaturalists with Gillian Hewitt Ben Newsome November 16, 2021 Podcast Art Biology Podcasts STEAM Connecting scientific theory with imagination is what Imaginaturalists is all about! We chat with founder Gillian Hewitt to learn how students can create scientifically accurate drawings of the world around them as well and take this to another level when pondering what might live on other worlds. Read More Listen Episode: 172 " Looking towards Industry 5.0 " Comments 0 Podcast: Statistics Sustainability Systems thinking and STEM Ben Newsome October 24, 2023 Sustainability Podcast Environment STEM Just what is Industry 5.0? How might Statistics Sustainability Systems thinking and STEM prepare our students for the future? We speak with Emeritus Professor Tim Roberts AM and Professor Peter Howley to learn their thoughts! Read More Listen Love Science? Subscribe! Join our newsletter Receive more lesson plans and fun science ideas. PROGRAMS COURSES SHOP SCIENCE PARTIES Calendar of Events HIGH SCHOOL Science@Home 4-Week Membership 12PM: March 2024 Feb 26, 2024 - Mar 29, 2024 12PM - 12PM Price: $50 - $900 Book Now! PRIMARY Science@Home 4-Week Membership 2PM: March 2024 Feb 26, 2024 - Mar 22, 2024 2PM - 2PM Price: $50 - $900 Book Now! Light and Colour Online Workshop, Jan 18 PM Jan 18, 2024 2PM - 3PM Price: $50 Book Now! 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Ever wondered whether a science video on YouTube, Vimeo or similar does the best job it can in teaching students science? PhD candidate Petr Lebedev from the School of Physics at the University of Sydney is researching exactly that. For Petr, it’s not just the content that matters… it’s also about whether the video grabs the viewer’s attention enough to create deeper questions and reflections on the science behind the visuals. Hosted by Ben Newsome
Watching a science video is one thing, but truly learning from it is another. In this episode, we sit down with Petr Lebedev to discuss the cognitive science behind physics education. We explore how to design digital content that moves beyond passive consumption to spark active reflection, and what it’s like researching for the legendary Dr Karl to ensure scientific accuracy meets high-energy entertainment. About Petr Lebedev Petr Lebedev is a PhD researcher in Physics Education at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on the intersection of multimedia and cognition—specifically, how video design can encourage viewers to reflect on their own misconceptions. Beyond his academic work, Petr has served as a researcher and fact-checker for Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s show on the Discovery Channel, where he specialised in translating complex data into engaging narratives. He is a passionate advocate for science communication that prioritises deep understanding over simple rote learning. Connect: @ptrlbdv on X (Twitter) Top Learnings: The Science of Science Media The Value of Productive Confusion: Petr highlights research showing that the biggest learning gains occur when students are initially confused. Effective physics videos don’t just provide clear answers; they first address misconceptions to challenge the viewer’s existing mental models. Multi-Level Pitching: Great science communication should be pitched at various levels simultaneously. By including layers of humour and depth, a single piece of media can engage a five-year-old, a high-school student, and an expert all at once. Combating the “Close Enough” Bias: Many learners fail to correct their understanding because they perceive their intuitive explanations as being “close enough” to the fact. Petr’s research suggests that requiring students to commit to a specific answer and reflect on their reasoning is essential for genuine conceptual change. Education Tip: The “Commit to an Answer” Strategy. Incorporate Petr’s research methodology into your lessons by using a “commit to an answer” phase. Before showing a science demonstration or a solution video, have students write down their prediction and the specific reasoning behind it. This creates a psychological commitment that makes the eventual reveal far more impactful, as students are forced to reconcile the actual result with their stated prediction. Associated Resources Multimedia Learning Principles Explore how to improve how you use slides, videos, and images in your teaching through proven educational frameworks. Read More → Dr Karl’s Science Insights See how professional science communication balances entertainment and accuracy by exploring the work of Petr’s colleague, Dr Karl. Visit Dr Karl → Want to bring hands-on science to your school? Book an award-winning workshop or show that builds fundamental thinking skills through high-energy, interactive experiments. Browse School Workshops Audio Transcript Published: May 5, 2018 APA 7 Citation: Newsome, B. (Host). (2018, May 5). YouTube & Science Content [Audio podcast transcript]. Fizzics Education. https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/podcast/fizzicsed/youtube-science-content/ Copy APA Citation Ben Newsome CF is the recipient of the 2023 UTS Chancellor’s Award for Excellence and a Churchill Fellow. He is a global leader in science communication and the founder of Fizzics Education. [00:00:04]Petr Lebedev: So I think the biggest thing is, and this is a clichĂ©, but knowing your audience. You need to pitch the, what you’re saying needs to be pitched at the right level. And that doesn’t mean that it can’t be pitched at numerous levels all at the same time. When someone watches Shrek, a five-year-old kid can appreciate the humour, but also their parent can also have a decent time. [00:00:32]Ben Newsome: And it’s with that frame of mind that Petr Lebedev is working on a PhD to work out just exactly how science education videos can not just teach content knowledge, but encourage reflection as well. This is going to be an interesting chat. [00:00:44]Announcer: You’re listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. For hundreds of ideas, free experiments and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. And now, here’s your host, Ben Newsome. [00:01:01]Ben Newsome: Welcome again to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. I reckon that you’ve probably been on YouTube once or twice, right? Let’s be honest, some of you might have actually been on YouTube in the last five minutes prior to turning on this podcast. Here’s the thing: YouTube is being used by students all over the globe as a research tool to learn about science and all sorts of other stuff. The thing is, is that stuff that’s being presented useful and relevant to that learner? How is it handling different audiences of different ages? [00:01:31]Ben Newsome: That’s exactly what Petr Lebedev is doing at the School of Physics at the University of Sydney. His PhD research is around how to create physics education videos that don’t just teach the content knowledge—and hopefully that content knowledge is correct—but also, does it encourage deeper reflection by the learner? So Petr has a bit to do with this project. He’s got lots and lots of YouTube videos to review, and hopefully, it’ll be very interesting to find out what comes out of his research. Today is all about what’s out there in the media landscape and what that means for the learner. [00:01:59]Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. [00:02:01]Petr Lebedev: It’s been quite hectic. I’m one year into my PhD, so starting my second year now and it’s just insane. It’s just data collection after data collection, it’s human ethics after human ethics. But you know, and teaching and all that stuff, so it’s very busy, but it’s fascinating stuff. I love it. [00:02:21]Ben Newsome: It is. Now, you do actually have a fascinating role and I love your topic, but there’ll be people who don’t know what you get up to. So Petr, tell us, what do you do? [00:02:28]Petr Lebedev: Currently, I am a physics education PhD student. I’m part of a group at Sydney University that’s trying to figure out how to teach physics better as a very general, broad thing. My specific interest is in teaching physics through multimedia, so primarily focusing on YouTube. And I’m not just focusing on the content knowledge or the conceptual understanding of physics, I’m also really interested in how people think about physics and how they analyse sources and how they reflect and how they change their minds. So that’s currently what I’m focusing on. [00:03:15]Ben Newsome: What led you down that path? Because I can see why there’s serious value in doing a PhD in this, but what made you think, you know what, I’ve got to go check this out, I’ve got to find out these answers. [00:03:28]Petr Lebedev: Well, we can go a little bit further back and just go what got me into physics in the first place, because that’s where it starts. I’m interested in this because I think physics is incredibly valuable. And I was very lucky that both of my parents were physicists and they still are physicists. [00:03:51]Ben Newsome: What do they do, by the way? [00:03:52]Petr Lebedev: My dad did his PhD in plasma, and my mum is a seismologist. And both of them are working over in Perth, one’s at Curtin, one’s at CSIRO, doing geophysical modelling stuff. It’s all about rock physics, it’s like material science with fluid dynamics and lots of cool hard differential equations. [00:04:15]Ben Newsome: So you were basically doomed from the beginning, right? [00:04:18]Petr Lebedev: Totally. [00:04:21]Ben Newsome: Okay, so you obviously are clearly into physics, you’ve got a background in physics with your family, so you got into physics education, I’m guessing, from there? [00:04:29]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, so I did an undergrad and I did my honours in geophysics because, why not? I was really into the, one, I’m obviously really into the physics, but also there’s the planetary side. I absolutely love planetary science. I think our solar system is absolutely fascinating and we know very little about it. So when I finished my honours, it was either do a PhD studying meteorites, which is really cool, or go over to Sydney and start this PhD with my supervisor, Professor Manjula Sharma. [00:05:15]Petr Lebedev: And the story with that kind of goes back to this guy called Derek Muller, who you might recognise as Veritasium. [00:05:20]Ben Newsome: Yes. [00:05:21]Petr Lebedev: Yes, exactly. So he did his PhD with Manju. He started in 2004, that was before YouTube existed. And his PhD was on how do you use short, linear multimedia, so how do you use short videos to teach physics effectively? Because he was obviously into documentary making and Carl Sagan and all these people and wanted to do that for a living. So that was his PhD. He wanted to figure out how to actually use these tools to not just get clicks, to actually teach people something. And I am a big fan of Derek and have been lucky enough to work with him a little bit recently. [00:06:07]Ben Newsome: He achieved that more than just a little bit. [00:06:11]Petr Lebedev: For sure. He’s doing amazingly well for himself and having a huge positive impact on the world. I’m not necessarily saying that I’m trying to emulate that because I think people are different. I can’t be Derek 2.0. I’m just going to be Petr 1.0. But the impact that he’s had on so many people I think is wonderful. And if I could in the future do something similar, I think that’ll be a life very much well lived. So yeah, I guess the physics education side of things, I’m really just really into science and I’m really into talking about science and that’s kind of the logical extension of that. [00:07:01]Ben Newsome: Love it. And I couldn’t agree more. I’ve sort of bitten that apple and well swallowed it, very much running a space that does it too, in our own little way. And I totally agree, and I love the idea of just thinking from a point of view of serious volume. Something like YouTube and all that type of thing is a huge thing, especially nowadays, but the fact that you can have genuine impact on someone in a place that you’ll never ever go to and you’ll never ever get to meet that person, yet you can actually spark an interest is just amazing. And I suppose that actually dovetails nicely with what you’re actually studying now. [00:07:38]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, I think that’s the huge appeal as well. But what I also want to say that the stuff that you’re doing, the stuff is obviously reaching lots and lots of people, but you’re also talking to students directly. And I also think that’s incredibly worthwhile. It’s really cool. I’m just taking this opportunity to say thanks for your work. I think it’s really cool. [00:08:03]Ben Newsome: Oh gosh, if people are just driving the car or walking the dog going, “Oh gosh, they’re just going to have a minute or two to pat each other’s backs!” But thank you very much. It is a lot of fun. I’m always curious about how people are impacting their audiences and their world, regardless of whether they’re in a classroom with 30 kids every single day, because that is a deep impact, that’s working with people very directly for a very long time and watching them grow, or in our case, often being parachuted in. And in your case, it’s actually via distance even further. I guess we haven’t gone down this line to any real degree, and I’d imagine that it’s a two-edged sword. You can either do it really well or really poorly. I guess just out of interest, I don’t want to name names, but what have you seen where people have tried but they genuinely not really helped? [00:09:00]Petr Lebedev: Sure. I think there are a lot of people that do a great job, but there’s also some people that just preach to the choir, so to say. There’s certain public figures in science that seem to attract just a particular crowd. I think the atheist community is quite popular for that. I think the only people that read books written by famous public atheists are people who are already, you know… if that makes sense? [00:09:44]Ben Newsome: I actually get what you mean. We were lucky enough to be involved in helping produce the Innovation Games last year and there’s a bit of this stuff coming up again for Sydney Olympic Park. One of the prime directives, and I love what Mike Bartlett was saying with this, was we need to reach the people who don’t want to be reached. [00:10:00]Petr Lebedev: Totally. [00:10:01]Ben Newsome: And I went, that’s just it. That is exactly the point. Because I often worry about the choir. Eventually, you might as well just be off the same songbook, right? [00:10:09]Petr Lebedev: Exactly. But I think it’s a very, very hard thing to do. Reaching people that don’t want to be reached is incredibly difficult. So I totally understand why people… it’s very comfortable to be in your own echo chamber. [00:10:22]Ben Newsome: Yeah, we call it work science by stealth. [00:10:24]Petr Lebedev: Totally. [00:10:27]Ben Newsome: But obviously on the flip side, you’ll have people who are just completely nailing it. So what have you seen out there that absolutely works? [00:10:37]Petr Lebedev: In terms of specific people or…? [00:10:41]Ben Newsome: More about in regards to your own studies, like you’re evaluating what works, what doesn’t. In terms of things that you’re going, you know what, this is just exactly perfect. [00:10:54]Petr Lebedev: I think the biggest thing is, and this is a clichĂ©, but knowing your audience. You need to pitch the, what you’re saying needs to be pitched at the right level. And that doesn’t mean that it can’t be pitched at numerous levels all at the same time. When someone watches Shrek, a five-year-old kid can appreciate the humour, but also their parent can also have a decent time. And I think you can also do that with science videos or science shows. I saw Brain Candy, which is Adam Savage and Michael Stevens, so MythBusters and Vsauce. And they were absolutely brilliant because it was pitched at maybe about three different levels. The comedy and the explanations worked on the level of a five-year-old, the comedy and explanations worked for the level of a high schooler, and then there was more difficult stuff for people who are older and there were more political jokes and all those kind of things. [00:12:00]Petr Lebedev: So I felt like I have two degrees in this, and still I felt like my understanding of Bernoulli’s principle was a little bit more solidified because it was such a beautiful, wonderful demonstration. But also I felt entertained. And I also knew that a five-year-old would have been entertained as well and they would have learned something. So I found that really inspiring. [00:12:31]Ben Newsome: It’s a really hard balancing act, isn’t it? Because I agree, it’s almost like double entendres without anything bad within it. I’ve got the older audience, I’ve got the younger audience, I’ve got the people who are just beginning to grasp the topic, then I’ve got the experts in the audience as well. Especially in a public event. It’s a tightrope and a half to try and walk. [00:12:47]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, totally. It’s a razor’s edge. [00:12:49]Ben Newsome: Absolutely. Now, I suppose you’d experience this a bit with some of the work that you do with Dr Karl. Tell us a bit about that. [00:12:54]Petr Lebedev: Yeah. That’s actually an interesting story. I got very lucky last year where I just moved to Sydney. I’m originally from Perth and the first week, I get to the Physics building and I get shown to where my office is. Day one of PhD, fantastic, super exciting. And then I look down the hallway and there’s Dr Karl. And I’m like, wait, what? I didn’t even know that Karl was at USyd when I started my PhD. But yeah, he’s an honorary associate here and he has his office and that office is two doors down from my office, which is very cool. [00:13:41]Ben Newsome: So if people are overseas, if you don’t happen to be in Australia and not quite sure who Dr Karl is, think like Bill Nye the Science Guy for Australia, if that kind of helps. [00:13:50]Petr Lebedev: Totally. It’s that kind of level. And so I knocked on his door and I came and said hi, and I was like, “Hey, I’m a new PhD student. I’m really interested in science communication.” And we had a lovely chat. And then he was like, “Hey, I need a researcher and a fact-checker on this new show that I’m doing with Discovery. Do you want to help?” And I was like, yes! Absolutely insane. Couldn’t say yes faster. [00:14:23]Ben Newsome: What topics did you have to research? Just out of interest. [00:14:26]Petr Lebedev: It was Dr Karl’s Outrageous Acts of Science, which was on Foxtel last year. I’m sure you’ll be able to find copies of it floating around somewhere. And it was basically everything. It was this very wide range of topics. It was this very Discovery show that focuses on explosions and tarantula stings and all these kind of the wacky zany science that gets a lot of clicks. So that was actually really interesting to work on, because you’re trying to include as much valid scientific content into something that is primarily entertainment. The goal of that show isn’t education, the goal of that show is to have people watch the Discovery Channel. [00:15:21]Ben Newsome: Yeah, and a lot of these are really small sound bites. It’s something that myself and Holly at work too have had to deal with in terms of often we’ll be asked to do a weather cross for Channel 7, Channel 9, Channel 10, and you’ve only got about 20 seconds. And you want to do something that’s actually decent without completely invalidating how science works, in an entertainment context. I suppose the format in a Discovery Channel programme like that, you got a bit longer, but geez you haven’t got that much longer when you actually look at the seconds ticking by. [00:15:53]Petr Lebedev: No, you don’t. And there were a lot of comedians on the show as well, so the focus was very much like, this is meant to be funny, so you’re constantly trying to find the angle that’s funny and interesting. And there’s all these limitations from just the nature of TV. [00:16:15]Ben Newsome: Actually speaking of comedians, it’s funny how these chats always just take different paths. But I remember actually listening to some professional public speakers saying who should you get trained to be a really good public speaker? And they suggested, to be honest, straight up, get a comedian to train you. And you think about having to stand on stage, you’ve got no props, it’s just you and a microphone, to be able to get a topic across where they’re actually going to laugh and they don’t know you, it’s a tough deal. I suppose now you’re working with comedians on a show like that, that would have been a rigorous process. [00:16:51]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, I actually think that’s brilliant advice. I think if anyone’s taking the one thing away from this podcast, I think that’s the gold nugget right there. I think being a comedian is incredibly hard. And I think that’s something that more science communicators can learn from. I think we sometimes get too focused on the data. And the data is important, truth is important, don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely not saying that’s not important, I’m just saying that people respond to humour and people respond to stories. And if you as a science communicator are not telling stories, if you don’t have something to draw people in, well they’re going to tune out. [00:17:40]Ben Newsome: Oh, absolutely. [00:17:41]Petr Lebedev: That comes back to the previous thing that you’re saying, how do you get people engaged who don’t want to be engaged? It’s by telling stories. It’s by telling interesting stories that people can relate to. [00:17:57]Ben Newsome: I absolutely agree. I was doing a connection to a school in Tennessee Saturday morning, it was from 1:00 AM to 4:30 AM because I’m a masochist. But anyway, we’re doing these connections, it was a lot of fun, I just love doing them. And I always love starting with the time discussion. Usually they’ve been prepped, they know it’s early in the morning or late at night. But then I love just simply, and this has got nothing to do with the science whatsoever, it’s just simply notation, is: kids, can you just tell me what date it is? And in this case for them it was the 9th of the 3rd 18. And so they’d tell me the date and so I’d write 3/9/18 knowing full well that’s exactly how the notation is over there, month, day, year. And then I go, all right, so I’m at 1:00 AM for me, so it’s the next day, so what day would it be for me kids? And they all go, it’d be the 10th! And so what I write then is 10/3/18. And they all freak out and a kid put his hands up and goes, are you telling me it’s in October? And I totally get it and the poor kid was just not used to seeing it. I go no, no, I circle the month and the two different ways of noting it down and go, look, there are regional differences. You might be communicating the same information back and forth, but you’re actually still speaking a different language if you actually look deeper. And it’s a really nice way to starting off a science programme of, look, we’ve done the time zone thing and it’s nice to get to know each other, but I get the kids to stop and think about what I’m presenting because what I’m presenting might be sort of similar to what you’ve been talking about, but maybe we need to look deeper in the first place. [00:19:28]Petr Lebedev: I love that. I absolutely love that. [00:19:30]Ben Newsome: It’s a lot of fun too, it freaks people out. I must say at 1:00 in the morning though, I kind of sometimes just mess it up completely. But anyway, I digress. [00:19:40]Petr Lebedev: The biggest takeaway from Derek’s thesis was that the biggest learning gains happened from the videos that confused people a little bit. It’s not the ones where the information was clear and concise and easy to understand. It’s good that the explanation is clear and concise and easy to understand, but maybe the first little bit you need to have a little bit of confusion. And if you can address a misconception, I think that’s really worthwhile. There’s a video that would be really great to put in the show notes of him walking around with a book and a hard drive and going, “Hey, so put your hand on the book and put your hand on the hard drive. Tell me which one’s colder.” And obviously everyone says that it’s the hard drive. [00:20:36]Petr Lebedev: And then just confusing people going, “Well, no, look, they’re the same temperature. They’re at room temperature right now. Just one is more conductive.” And then that’s your in to talk about thermodynamics and thermal physics and conductivity and all these other things. [00:20:56]Ben Newsome: Oh speaking of preaching to the choir that we were talking about earlier, that’s exactly what we do for our properties of materials programme. I actually talked about this way back in Episode 2 when I was talking with Isabelle Kingsley from the Powerhouse Museum. I love this demo, in fact people at work are sick of me talking about it, but I love the demo where, as opposed to a book and a hard drive, we just use two baking trays, one is rubber, one is steel. And you get the kids to feel both ones and then you put ice on them. And what happens is the ice actually melts ridiculously fast on the cold feeling steel baking tray because it conducts heat. It’s really good at it. I love that thing and that’s kind of cool because as opposed to a hard drive and a book you can just walk around campus and get anyone off the street. That’s cool. [00:21:40]Petr Lebedev: For sure. But yeah, that was Derek’s thesis, the outcome was to teach physics effectively in this multimedia format, you got to have misconceptions. One of the ways is misconceptions. And I’m definitely butchering a 200-page thesis by trying to sum it up in 20 seconds. So it’s worth reading. It’s actually really not a difficult read at all. [00:22:09]Ben Newsome: Actually, I don’t think you’re butchering it, and considering that your job in some ways, especially with Dr Karl, is to create quick sound bites around learning, that’s perfectly fine what you just said. [00:22:17]Petr Lebedev: I try, but I think it’s also important to remember that there is nuance. As soon as you create a sound bite, you lose nuance. And sometimes it’s useful and sometimes it’s worth just having a really long form discussion about something. [00:22:35]Ben Newsome: So speaking theses, obviously eventually at the end of your PhD, a tome will be written at some point which hopefully people read and use. What are you hoping to discover in your own research? [00:22:45]Petr Lebedev: So I’m really looking at how people are changing their minds. And the reason that it’s kind of taken on its own thing where it started off as purely about physics, and I really like that it is currently about physics because physics is incredibly apolitical. We don’t necessarily have political biases towards this kind of stuff. But the research that I’m conducting right now and the surveys that are going out live today are, it’s about, so you watch a video and then in that video there’s four questions. And you answer, you write down your four questions. And then afterwards you watch the video where there’s the solutions to the four questions. [00:23:36]Petr Lebedev: And what I’m asking the students to do is write down whether they have or haven’t changed their minds after watching the solutions video. So we’re trying to capture the reasons, like what did they find compelling about this explanation, what they didn’t find compelling about this explanation? And from the preliminary tests that we did last year, we got some interesting results where there was a lot of people saying that they didn’t change their answer because they thought their explanation of the physics was close enough, or that the explanation that was given was wrong, or that there was something wrong with the video, that it was a trick question. So there was all these different categories of reasoning for not accepting the answer that was given to them. And I think that kind of critical reflection is really interesting and trying to figure out what are the salient points of creating something that encourages positive reflection. [00:24:55]Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Grab a copy of our new book, Be Amazing: How to Teach Science the Way Primary Kids Love, from our website. Just search “Be Amazing book.” It’s available in hard copy and ebook. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S. [00:25:08]Ben Newsome: Yeah, and I kind of think that what you’re doing extends well beyond physics education. It just does. It extends across education full stop, and it can even go further than that. Just anyone trying to teach people something. It doesn’t have to be informal education at all. What is your impact, does the audience get what you’re trying to say? It’s probably a good thing. [00:25:27]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, totally. And the reason that I find it interesting within the context of physics education is because again, there’s no politics involved. The answer is this whether you like it or not. And yet there’s still people who are still not changing their answers for reasons that we might find strange. So I find that interesting because I think one of the skills that I want to get out of this is I want to be able to talk to people who have different ideas and opinions about the world. And I want to be able to convince them that look, global warming is real. It’s a real issue that we should be talking about. And AI is great and it’s really interesting and it’s really worthwhile, but we should also be talking about investing into safety research. [00:26:22]Petr Lebedev: And convincing people that don’t want to be convinced, you know, global warming deniers really don’t want to be convinced that global warming is real for a number of reasons. But that’s kind of the people that we should be trying to reach, that’s the people we should be trying to talk to. And you can’t do it in an angry or dismissive way because that’s not going to help anyone, that’s not going to change anyone’s minds, that much we know. And the details are the most interesting part. [00:26:54]Ben Newsome: Agree. And actually I was speaking with some ABC broadcasters around this very issue that everyone’s trying to grapple with in media, which is simply how do we get people out of their echo chambers? Let’s be honest, we all, if you’re not on Facebook, I get that, it’s probably wise not to be on Facebook, but if you’re on social media you obviously follow the people you want to follow and you don’t follow the people you don’t. And so you start to create your own reality in some ways. And therefore your own media and therefore your own opinions and judgments around those. So it’s a real issue to grapple with, especially in a democratic society that should understand all points of view before coming to decisions. [00:27:32]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, totally. And as much as I’m a huge fan of YouTube, I think the platform in a lot of ways changed directly changed my life. Derek putting out the incredible videos that he does and Destin from Smarter Every Day and Henry from MinutePhysics and all these guys, they really encouraged me to do what I am doing now. But at the same time, the recommendation algorithm is so echo chamber based. If you watch a video about cats, you will get more and more cats in your news feed in your recommended videos. And that’s fine for cats, and that’s fine for science, that’s a good thing for science. But it’s not necessarily great if you’re going down a political rabbit hole that just gets more and more extreme. Or a very extreme version of science reality which is not actually reality at all. [00:28:31]Ben Newsome: Exactly. [00:28:32]Petr Lebedev: So I think the YouTube algorithm is trying to maximise time on site, and it’s trying to maximise the amount of time that people watch the videos. And it doesn’t really care about the content of those videos. And I don’t necessarily think that’s the way to a healthy society. [00:28:51]Ben Newsome: I feel that considering that Google’s involved with YouTube now and the “do no harm” mantra is part of their thing, I mean this could be naive in some ways, but I wouldn’t be surprised, especially with AI and machine learning, to be able to pick up what’s actually within the content over time. I mean obviously it needs some serious crunching of data here, but I kind of wonder if there is actually a way out eventually at some point where they can actually work out well, what is the content of this stuff that people are consuming and is it real? But who knows. I mean that is for the quantum computing people to work out, that’s so much data. It’s crazy. [00:29:26]Petr Lebedev: It is a lot of data and it is crazy. And there was an interesting case with Brady Haran, who runs so many channels, but one of them is called Numberphile and it’s absolutely fascinating. And this was a video about the very early stages of film and how film cameras were developed and how they were used and all the science behind that. And it’s an educational video. But in one of the clips that was shown was an anatomical video of a person walking. And even though there’s no explicit content there, the YouTube algorithm flagged that as nudity. And it’s kind of like, well of course it flagged it as nudity, it thinks that it’s a naked person, which in some ways it kind of is. [00:30:22]Petr Lebedev: But there’s a fine line between that is obviously an educational video. Any person that watches it knows that it’s an educational video. But an algorithm doesn’t. So that video got demonetised and blocked, even though it really shouldn’t have. It’s back online now because a human sorted it out. But I think we’re still a long way to go with the YouTube algorithm. [00:30:53]Ben Newsome: Yeah, and I’m certainly not qualified in any way to make any comments of any near future at all. My head space is way in the distant future. [00:31:02]Petr Lebedev: For sure, for sure, for sure. Absolutely. [00:31:04]Ben Newsome: Man, we went down a weird rabbit hole. [00:31:06]Petr Lebedev: And it’s not the first time and won’t be the last time too, by the way. [00:31:08]Ben Newsome: But that’s okay, that’s all part of it. Hey, just out of interest, obviously there’ll be some people who’d want to emulate what you’ve been getting up to in science communication. Hey, they may even want to write for Dr Karl or whatever it is. What sort of advice would you suggest to people listening who may want to go down that particular rabbit hole? [00:31:26]Petr Lebedev: Study hard. Like really just I’m serious, there are certain hoops that are really hard to jump, especially if you’re in high school or university right now. And want to have an interesting life and an interesting career, I really do recommend that you get above a certain grade so people kind of look at you more seriously. As annoying as that is and as much as I hate that because I really think we should be judging humans on how they are as humans rather than their academic record. The academic record really does help. If I didn’t have the marks that I had in my last couple of years, my first couple of years of uni were terrible, but my last couple of years were a lot better. I wouldn’t have been able to get into a PhD at University of Sydney. And then I wouldn’t have been able to hang out with Dr Karl and do work for him and do all of these interesting things. [00:32:21]Petr Lebedev: So I think that’s number one is your grades need to be decent. And the other thing is talk to people, be interested in stuff, create your own thing. If you’re interested in science communication, have your own podcast, have your own YouTube channel. And when you apply for a job as a science communicator, you have a little bit of a portfolio going. You’re not going to be just a kid that goes, “Hey, I’m really interested in science communication, I really want this job.” You’re going to be the person that goes, “Hey, I’m really interested in science communication and here’s my portfolio. Here’s the work that I’ve been doing for the last year. This is kind of proof that I care about this.” So I think just putting in the work, there’s no way around that. [00:33:18]Ben Newsome: Yeah, that’s right. And being avidly curious over the top of that means that the work doesn’t feel like work, it’s sort of play. And then you end up in this situation where things are almost out of hand. At least on our front where we got so much stuff going on that I genuinely just enjoy doing crazy stuff in the middle of the night purely because hey, I just want to try that too. [00:33:37]Petr Lebedev: For sure. But I also don’t want to… I am ridiculously privileged, and I want to acknowledge that privilege, being all of the things that I am in our society. And also the fact that both of my parents are physicists and all these kind of things. So it is privilege and it is luck, and I’m definitely not saying that I got here only because of hard work. I didn’t. It was a lot of luck and a lot of support from others. [00:34:08]Ben Newsome: It’s usually a confluence of many things and actually some studies of business leaders who have made some serious impacts in Fortune 500 companies and all that rest, they do attribute a portion of that themselves. They say it themselves outright, “I needed a sliding doors moment for this to happen, and it did and I took it.” And that’s actually true, that’s part of it as well. [00:34:25]Petr Lebedev: Totally, totally. [00:34:26]Ben Newsome: So thanks very much for popping on Petr, over this podcast. Now obviously I really like some people if they wanted to be able to get in touch with you, have that ability. So how will they be able to get in touch? [00:34:36]Petr Lebedev: I have a Twitter account. So that’s P T R L B D V, which is my name without all the vowels, which I thought was a good idea at the time and now I realize now that I have to spell it out on a podcast it’s not such a great idea. [00:34:54]Ben Newsome: That’s ok, we’ll put that in the show notes, that’s no problem at all. [00:34:57]Petr Lebedev: Fantastic. [00:34:58]Ben Newsome: No worries. And I really do encourage people to get in touch with Petr because the work that you’re doing is of serious value and hopefully once it’s published and out in the blue yonder, that people then pick it up and then go further with it again, which would be really handy. [00:35:12]Petr Lebedev: Yeah, hopefully, hopefully. Well thank you so much for having me on. And yeah, please do contact me. If you’re listening to this, say hi on Twitter. [00:35:21]Ben Newsome: Absolutely, he won’t bite. He’ll be all right. All right. Well thank you very much Petr. Have a fantastic afternoon. [00:35:26]Petr Lebedev: Right back at you. Thank you. [00:35:28]Announcer: This is the Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Grab a copy of our new book, Be Amazing: How to Teach Science the Way Primary Kids Love, from our website. Just search “Be Amazing book.” It’s available in hard copy and ebook. Go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S. [00:35:52]Ben Newsome: Well there you go. That was Petr Lebedev who is doing a fantastic job in making sure that all the stuff that’s out there might actually be useful to the learner in terms of science education videos. It’s going to be very interesting to hear exactly what his final research will end up looking like and how that might shape education going forward. Now the thing is, there is lots of university research going on into education in science. And one of our past guests, Dr Simon Crook, has been doing a bit of that too. [00:36:18]Dr Simon Crook: A former colleague of mine had this phrase, “engage me or enrage me”. So if they’re engaged, you’ve won out. You’re not going to have to deal with as many classroom management issues. [00:36:31]Ben Newsome: Don’t you love that phrase? “Engage me or enrage me.” That’s exactly how we should be thinking about our audiences in general, our classes. As a student, wouldn’t you hate sitting there just watching going, “Oh, this is just not for me.” And worse, the people who just keep on droning on and they won’t get to the point. It’s so important and Dr Simon Crook has been doing a lot of work with educators right across Australia through his efforts and his company called Crooked Science. Funny name, but certainly very serious when it comes to science education and the context in the classroom. So go ahead and check out Episode 29 of the Fizzics Ed Podcast and know that there’s still more to come. You’ve been listening to me, Ben Newsome for Fizzics Education, and you’ve been listening to the Fizzics Ed Podcast. I’ll catch you next week. [00:37:11]Announcer: You’ve been listening to another Fizzics Ed Podcast. We’re excited about science. Subscribe to us on iTunes to download the next episode as soon as it’s released. And don’t forget, for hundreds of ideas, free experiments, our new Be Amazing book and more, go to fizzicseducation.com.au. That’s physics spelled F I Z Z I C S. [00:37:37]Announcer: This podcast is part of the Australian Educators Online Network. AEON.net.au. Frequently Asked Questions Discussion points summarized from YouTube & Science Content podcast with AI assistance, verified and edited by Ben Newsome CF. What is the primary focus of Petr Lebedev’s PhD research? Petr is researching physics education through multimedia, specifically focusing on how YouTube videos can be designed to encourage deeper reflection. He investigates how viewers analyse sources, engage with content, and why they choose to change—or not change—their minds after being presented with correct scientific explanations. Why does Petr suggest that confusion can be beneficial for learning? Drawing on research by Derek Muller (Veritasium), Petr explains that the greatest learning gains often come from videos that initially confuse the viewer by addressing a misconception. When a video is too clear and concise without challenging the learner’s existing mental models, it may not lead to significant conceptual change. What is the “Shrek” approach to science communication? This refers to pitching content at multiple levels simultaneously. Just as a movie like Shrek contains layers of humour for both children and adults, effective science media (like Brain Candy) provides simple explanations for novices while including deeper nuances or sophisticated jokes for experts and older audiences. How did Petr’s work with Dr Karl influence his views on science media? Working as a researcher and fact-checker for Dr Karl’s Outrageous Acts of Science on the Discovery Channel, Petr had to balance scientific accuracy with the high-energy demands of entertainment. This experience highlighted the challenge of maintaining valid content within the short sound bites typical of modern television. What advice does Petr have for aspiring science communicators? He emphasises two main pillars: maintaining a strong academic record and building a proactive portfolio. Petr suggests that having your own podcast or YouTube channel provides tangible proof of your passion and skills, making you a more competitive candidate than someone who is simply “interested” in the field. Extra thought ideas to consider The “Close Enough” Learning Barrier Petr’s research found that students often refuse to change their minds because they feel their incorrect explanation was “close enough” to the truth. How can educators design assessments or demonstrations that more clearly define the boundaries between a near-miss and a scientifically accurate understanding? Storytelling over Data Petr suggests that science communicators should learn from comedians to avoid becoming too focused on raw data. In a classroom setting, how might the use of narrative and humour help students retain complex physics concepts better than traditional data-heavy lectures? The Ethics of the Algorithm If YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is designed to maximise watch time rather than educational accuracy, what is the responsibility of science educators to teach students how to navigate their own “echo chambers” and critically evaluate the sources they encounter online? Want to bring hands-on science to your school? Book an award-winning workshop or show that builds fundamental thinking skills through high-energy, interactive experiments. Browse School Workshops
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