Carl Sagan devoted much of his life to science and bringing it to popular culture so that Americans can develop an interest and knowledge of real science. His show “Cosmos” brought the mysteries of science to television. Other examples of science brought to popular culture is They Might Be Giant’s Here Comes Science, a CD filled with songs about science. Bill Nye the Science Guy is also a very popular television show of science in popular culture. Carl Sagan believed that bringing science to popular culture would allow Americans to become more scientifically literate, therefore improving the country as a whole.
The Magic School Bus was a book series that was later turned into a television series. Joanna Cole, an elementary school teacher and librarian that had a passion for science, created it. The book consisted of an unorthodox and impulsive elementary school teacher named Ms. Frizzle and her diverse group of students. In the books and the show the students usually encountered a problem or had a curious question about how the world works. Mrs. Frizzle and her magic school bus would take the children on exotic field trips such as, shrinking themselves with magic and taking a live tour through the human body, or discovering how white light is separated in to the rainbow. The topics of the program included all types of science such as human biology, physics, astronomy, and much more.
The audience of this program was elementary school-aged children. In order to hold the attention of such young children, Cole incorporated humor into the books and television show to evoke emotion in the audience to keep them entertained while they were learning science. The characters had distinctive personalities and qualities such as sarcasm, scaredy-cat, class clown, bookworm, etc. These qualities allowed the audience to identify with a specific character or even multiple characters.
This television show entertained me as an elementary school student and as I occasionally reflect on my childhood by going back and watching it today, I am still as entertained as I was ten years ago. The method of humor mixed with science is a great combination to be entertained and learn science at the same time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBknZPSSi0o (The Magic School Bus: Inside Ralphie)
WRT 102.22: Science & Society 