Okay, so when I first started my new science curriculum in 8th grade, I immediately said I hated science. It wasn't the curriculum; I just didn't find science interesting. I continued to have that opinion until sometime last year when I clicked on a video on YouTube by
Vsauce. Michael Stevens, the creator and host of the main channel (there are also
Vsauce 2 and
3), was talking about
Guns in Space. I found myself intrigued and, for the first time, actually interested in science. First he talked about how astronauts in orbit are experiencing about 90% of the gravitational pull we are, "but their angular velocity is so large that they're falling just as fast as earth curves away from them". So, if you shot a canon out in space, what would happen? Then another YouTuber (Henry Reich from
MinutePhysics) explained
Newton's Canon and relativity with animated drawings. So, the point was, if you shot a cannon in space (the moon to be exact) and then waited, it theoretically could hit you in the back of your head! After that question, Michael moved on to another interesting question. What if you had a water gun in space and shot it at the sun. How much water would it take to "put it out"?
He and Henry went on to explain how the sun works, blah blah blah... but I was hooked. I clicked the link under the video which brought me over to MinutePhysics and the video:
What if the Earth were Hollow? In it, Henry explained why you couldn't "dig a hole to China", or just from one side to the other. At times, he spoke of some of the same info that Vsauce had just covered, but at the end of the video, Michael pops in and invites you over to Vsauce and tells you to bring your gun. Anyhow, it turned out that both videos were uploaded on the same day and everything was linked. After checking out other videos on Vsause (
What If Everyone JUMPED At Once,
What Color Is A Mirror) I decided to subscribe.
Soon, I found myself watching other science related videos on either Vsause or MinutePhysics. Then Henry started another channel,
MinuteEarth. While this channel talks a lot about evolution, he does cover some interesting topics, such as
Why Are Leaves Green? Parts I and
II;
How Tall Can Mountains Be? and
Why Does Earth Have Deserts?
Not long after, I found
AsapSCIENCE (Which I don't recommend for younger children, as some of the topics aren't exactly "PG") and
SciShow, hosted by Hank Green, which covers topics like
Why Do Cats Purr? and
The Mayan Calender & 2012 (which is more history than science, but who cares...)
About a week ago, Vsause uploaded a new video:
How Much Money is There on Earth? At the end, there was a link that read "pennies"; when I clicked on it, it brought me over to
CGPGrey's video
Death to Pennies. The video explained why pennies (and nickels, for that matter) are worthless in the US. If you've chosen not to watch any of the linked videos (I completely understand!) I highly suggest you at least watch a video or two from
CGPGrey. He has a wide range of topics, including
The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained and Coffee: The Greatest Addition Ever. As far as science videos go, he's made 8 Animal Misconceptions Rundown and Is Pluto a planet? along with others. Most of his channel is full of cool, interesting geographical and historical videos.
As far as the rest of the channels on my subscriptions list;
TheFineBros, I watch their
React shows (that's about all I can recommend from them);
ThePianoGuys are, well, The Piano Guys;
Jamie Grace is just amazing;
HarperStill is Jamie Grace's and her older sister, Morgan Harper Nichol's, shared channel (I totally recommend subscribing!) and
BlimyCow has some awesome videos about everyday life. Jordan, the show's host (most of the time), is hilarious, sarcastic and ... well, it's easier to understand if you just go watch a video, or two.
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So there you go, my YouTube life and how I fell in love with science... well, kinda.
