Ologies with Alie Ward - BONUS Minisode: Preview of Alie on Bill Nye's "Science Rules!"

Episode Date: May 16, 2019

Announcement: BILL NYE HAS A PODCAST. And Alie's his first guest. Bill Nye’s on a mission to change the world, one phone call at a time and yer ol’ Dadward VonPodcast is first in the chair helping field questions. Yes she is freaking out about this and yes you should listen. In “Science Rules!," he tackles the curliest questions on just about anything in the universe with his signature knowledge and affability. And Alie shares her strategies for science communication. Take a listen to the preview here and then get the full episode of Alie on “Science Rules!” TODAY via your favorite podcast app or the link below.Full episode here: https://www.askbillnye.comSupport the show: http://Patreon.com/ologies

Oh hey, it's the winter coat you just stashed in the hall closet. Just giddily, giddily waiting for you to find that $10 bill in the pocket in, like, six months. Alleyward. Back with a little bonus nugget episode of oligies. Because pardon me while I freak out so hard, but Bill Nye, the science guy, not only has a new podcast that just launched called Science Rules, but he asked me to be his first guest Are you serious?

I'm just queasy and nauseous about it in the best way. So it's out today, his very first episode with your old buddy dad Ward. I'm just going to pause right here so you guys can start screaming. I'm just afraid I'm going to lose it. I'm just going to let you keep screaming. Okay, let's do a deep breath. We're back. All right, so Bill and his co-host Corey and I dorked out about science communication

and what we can all individually do to help change the world, how to get people jazzed as hell about science stuff, and also the emotions and passions that govern how we react to science and science news. So Bill has, like, low key been an idol of mine for years, and the fact that he has a podcast now is just thrilling enough, but that I got to meet up with him at the Stitcher studios in New York and just had phoned it up and hang out taking calls and answering listener questions was beyond, that's what I have to say about it. So listeners call up with weird, embarrassing, sometimes hella heavy questions and we did

our best to tackle them questions like, should we stop eating cheeseburgers to combat climate change? What's up with Mars colonies? How often should I really be washing my pillowcases? And will I ever be able to upload my brain to a computer? Can that happen like yesterday? So the show is co-hosted by Corey S. Powell, who is a science writer and an editor, Bill's trusty friend.

There's also other field experts and special celebrity guests to come because everyone loves Bill. Bill is on a mission to help explain how science rules everything in the universe. And you just have to tune into the podcast to find out what people are asking him. So the first episode features me. It's out now for free. You can check it out right after this. Just search science rules with Bill Nye in whatever podcast app you use, but I'm going

to give you a little preview teaser, kind of like a Costco sample of a toaster strudel that makes you buy a bulk box. So please enjoy a sample of my episode of science rules with Bill Nye out now and then go download the full version. Here we go. So your goal, if I understand it, is to use your media to promote scientists, which would in turn promote science, which would in turn make the world a better place. Make the world better.

I mean, the thing about science for me is like, there's this really big rift, I feel like, where people think that science stops when you graduate from school. You learn science for a layperson, you learn science in school and then you leave and you don't really think about it again until you have kids and then you have to teach the kids about science until they get out of school. And the thing that fascinates me about science is it's everywhere. It's in whiskey, it's in ice cream, it's in who you fall in love with, there's science in this table, there's science in these microphones, there's science everywhere.

So I think letting people get more familiar with the science in their adult lives will change the way that they live their life and give context for everything. So there's a big fear that goes back, I think, to the beginning of people. What nowadays we describe writ large as technology. So when there's a scientific breakthrough that enables a new thing to be made, be that either electronic microphone and podcasts, mobile phones or vaccines, people have a fear of this stuff. Technology generally makes your life better.

Oh sure, as do vaccines and medicine, I think it's great. I think that's the thing is just closing that rift with people and letting people know that there's not a science person and a not science people, we're all science people. If you've ever ridden a car or seen a doctor or eaten something that's cooked, you're a science person. And I think closing that rift in order to be interested in science, you already have to know the science is the biggest problem that we have with it because science is curiosity and just asking questions is the only key ingredient you need to be interested in science.

It's just curiosity. So can we go back to the phones? Absolutely. The phones which come from the internet, which come from electricity, well I digress, take it Cory. Which we hope is produced renewably and we have Leah. Hi, yes, I teach science at McHenry East High School in McHenry, Illinois. McHenry.

I'm speculating on the school song. Thank you. I was about to be really impressed when you knew their school song. Me too. I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, I have some really enthusiastic students here with me actually that were really excited when I found out that I was going to get to call in and so yeah, they're really excited. So my question is, as a high school science teacher, Bill, what's the best way to get

kids excited about science and create scientifically literate young citizens in this world today? Well, I will answer a question with a question, albeit a rhetorical question. Sure. What was your favorite, what did you like about your favorite teacher, your favorite professor? It was his or her passion. He or she was into it, right? He or she thought that what he or she was teaching was the greatest, coolest, most intriguing

thing ever. Well, no matter what it was, foreign policy, cooking, history, geography, algebra, whatever that teacher was into, you were into. So Leah, listening to you in your tone, I strongly suspect you are an enthusiastic person yourself. And I tell everybody, if you want to become a teacher and educator, you better be a performer for quite a while at some level. You better think being on stage is kind of cool or just don't bother doing it.

So Leah, you are passionate, yes? I like to think so, yeah. What are you excited about with respect in, let's say, writ large science? Yeah, so I teach a biomedical science program at our school and just the whole medical aspects of science is really just how the human body works. I remember as a little kid, poking around in my stomach and being like, what's inside there? Just being so curious about it and then being able to help my students find out these really

amazing things that the human body can do and get them excited for their future aspirations in science. So it's been fun. Right on. So everyone, people of all ages are fascinated with their bodies. Every little kid is fascinated with poo. Every grown-up eventually also becomes so, apparently. If you watch MTV, it's all the skin medicines.

If you watch cable news, it's all these extraordinary diseases with multi-syllabic names. Everybody is fascinated with their bodies. And when you're stuck in the airport, people eventually start talking about their broken ankles and their headaches and do you have any aspirin. And so if you're teaching biomedical science, that is cool. That's cool. Be passionate. Yeah.

My advice to you also to get people interested in science in general is make them pick their favorite thing on earth and write about all the aspects of science that made it exist. So if their favorite thing is, let's say gelato or if their favorite thing is pretty good or a certain Ferrari or whatever, make them think about it in a scientific aspect. If their favorite thing is coffee, maybe they could have them break down, okay, there's the beans. There's the agriculture. There's the pollinator.

There's the roasting. There's liquid is a state of matter. So just have them look at all the science and their favorite thing or maybe for you, since you're biomedical, maybe they could pick a favorite body part and just deep dive rabbit hole about that particular thing, whether it's a tube in your ear. Duodenum? A duodenum, for example. Get up in the guts and just write about how small intestine, for example, and just like

really laser focus and let them go down a rabbit hole so that they can really kind of see all of the different things that they can learn about that particular thing. But if they start with a passion about something they really like and then you let them investigate from there, then they might realize that there's that level of science and literally everything, which is freaking cool. Thanks for calling. Thanks, Leah. Thanks so much.

All right. So go to the link in the show notes and find the whole episode. Tell your pals that Dad Ward and Bill Nye are buds, that we have a whole episode to prove it, and subscribe to Science Rules and get the next one. Also make sure that you're subscribed to oligies while you're there because, hey, and if this mini-sode is your first oligies episode ever, just FYI, I tell a secret at the end of each episode. This week's secret is I just got back from hosting the Intel ISAF Science Fair this weekend,

and yes, that was very much a brag and a laurel that I plan on resting on for many years. But the garbage muppet part is that I was about to go on stage and I realized that I really should have gotten one of those airport shoe shines because my boots just look like dusty sadness and teenagers are so judgy. And so I panicked and I took a pat of butter from the dinner service backstage and I went into the bathroom and I rubbed it on my shoes and then I buffed them with a toilet seat cover and boy, howdy hot dang, it worked. So takeaways per usual.

Ask smart people stupid questions and then when you need to impress 4,500 high IQ science fair teenagers, just rub milk fat on your feet. I don't know, anyway, buh-bye. Science rules.