NDGT in Toronto

On Friday night, I attended a UofT lecture by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  I really didn't know what to expect going in but I ended up really enjoying it.  I have been a fan of NDGT for a while but didn't know he would be nearly that funny and entertaining giving a lecture. 

Neil discussed his take on Science through a cultural lens.  Some of the things that stood out for me were:

• He showed us his collection of the banknotes of different nations with scientists on them and discussed how this can set a standard for the population of that country. Especially interesting was Germany's 10 Deutschmark note with Gauss on it.  There is even a bell curve on it!
• He discussed how discovery of something leads to the naming of that thing using the periodic table and the planets as examples.  Google 'periodic table country of discovery' and 'year of discovery'.  It's pretty neat to connect the dots with what was going on in those nations at that time.  
• He also touched on more controversial topics such as technology and GMO's and the place of Social "Sciences" and arts compared to Science (his quotations around Sciences not mine).

The most impressive thing about the lecture was that even if you did not have any background in Science, you would still probably have understood most of the lecture and probably would have enjoyed it.  Neil actually touched on this during the question period.  He talked about how a lot of the skepticism toward Science comes from Scientists generally not letting the public into their 'club'. They use fancy words to maintain group exclusivity.  This is the exact opposite of what education should be.  
Knowledge Construction on the other hand occurs when you start with what the student knows and build their understanding from there as opposed to just throwing a bunch of facts and words at them.  Neil did a great job of this during the lecture.  He made a ton of jokes, kept the tone conversational, didn't use any fancy words and even tweeted during the talk!  He did as well as you can do with Knowledge Construction in a lecture scenario.

For me, it basically it boils down to this:
To get people excited about Science (and Math), get rid of the unnecessary pretense and subject-specific lingo and don't be afraid to show your passion for the subject.  

Lastly, Neil insisted he show us the following videos (even though the talk went way later than it was supposed to). Somebody had slowed down his Big Think talk (regular speed and slow motion videos below).  It's pretty funny and it was even more funny to watch Neil's reaction to the slowed down one.

Regular speed video:

Slow motion video:

Oh, and checked the Toronto Star yesterday and today and NO mention of the talk.  Hopefully there will be something in the Monday paper.  It's absolutely nuts what they prioritize over Science and education.