How I Teach Kids to Love Science | Cesar Harada | TED Talks

Summary

Cesar Harada shares his journey from childhood curiosity to educating the next generation on environmental issues. He discusses the reality of plastic pollution, oil spills, and nuclear contamination, and how he involves his students in innovative solutions. From building robots to detect ocean plastics to developing spectrometry prototypes for water quality, Harada emphasizes the importance of empowering young minds to tackle global challenges, fostering a future of citizen scientists and inventors.

Takeaways

• 🌍 The speaker emphasizes the importance of freedom with responsibility, learned from childhood experiences.
• 🏖️ As an adult, the speaker teaches citizen science and invention, highlighting the issue of plastic pollution in oceans.
• 👨‍🎓 The speaker's students, aged six to fifteen, are engaged in inventing solutions for environmental problems.
• 🔬 The class transformed into a workshop to create a workbench for prototyping, emphasizing hands-on learning.
• 🤖 The students aimed to invent a better way to collect data on plastic pollution using robots and rapid prototyping.
• 🌊 They developed a floating robot to capture images of plastic particles in water, demonstrating innovative problem-solving.
• 🔬 The students also built a spectrometer to analyze water quality, showing adaptability in scientific exploration.
• 🌏 The project's scope expanded from local to global issues, including oil spills and radioactivity from Fukushima.
• 📈 The speaker and students created a topographical map to understand and visualize radioactivity dispersion.
• 🧪 They collected seabed sediment to measure radioactivity, contributing to the safety of local communities and the environment.
• 🌱 The speaker calls for honesty with children about environmental issues, urging the use of their imagination to invent solutions.

Q & A

What is the main message the speaker wants to convey about responsibility and freedom?

The speaker emphasizes that freedom comes with responsibility, as illustrated by their childhood experience of being told to clean up after themselves. This theme is carried into adulthood, where they note that adults often make a mess but are not good at cleaning it up, suggesting a broader societal responsibility.

What is the speaker's profession and where does he teach?

The speaker is a teacher who teaches citizen science and invention at the Hong Kong Harbour School.

Why do the students clean up the beaches?

The students clean up the beaches as part of their role as good citizens, after discovering piles of trash on the beaches during their walks.

What percentage of the oceans have plastic in them according to the speaker?

According to the speaker, more than 80 percent of the oceans have plastic in them.

How do the students and the speaker approach the problem of plastic pollution?

The students and the speaker approach plastic pollution by inventing a better way to collect data on plastic in the oceans. They build a floating robot that captures images of plastic pieces and processes them to estimate the amount of plastic in the water.

What is 'rapid prototyping' as mentioned in the script?

Rapid prototyping refers to the quick process of creating a rough model or prototype of an invention. In the script, it is used to describe the fast and iterative process of building and testing their inventions, such as turning table lamps and webcams into parts of a floating robot.

How did the students become aware of the oil spill problem in the Sundarbans?

The students became aware of the oil spill problem in the Sundarbans through the internet and news, where they saw an image of a child cleaning up an oil spill bare-handed.

What technology did the students use to help address the oil spill problem?

The students used a technology called spectrometry to help address the oil spill problem. They built a prototype of a spectrometer to identify substances in the water.

Why did the speaker and the students want to measure radioactivity in Fukushima?

The speaker and the students wanted to measure radioactivity in Fukushima to understand the extent of contamination from the nuclear power plant after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and to contribute to the safety of the local population and the environment.

What is the significance of the mega-space the speaker mentions at the end?

The mega-space is significant because it is a large industrial site in Hong Kong that has been transformed into a space focused on social and environmental impact. It provides a place where adults and kids can collaborate, invent, and create solutions for various problems using a wide range of materials and technologies.

What is the speaker's view on shielding children from the 'ugly truth'?

The speaker believes that we can no longer afford to shield children from the 'ugly truth' because their imagination and creativity are needed to invent solutions to the world's problems.

Outlines

00:00

🌊 Ocean Plastic Pollution and Citizen Science

The speaker reflects on their childhood lessons about freedom and responsibility, leading to their current role as a teacher at the Hong Kong Harbour School. They discuss the stark reality of plastic pollution in the oceans, with over 80% of the oceans containing plastic. To address this, the speaker and their students, aged six to fifteen, have been inventing solutions. They've created a miniature workshop in their classroom, where they use power tools to build inventions. They've developed a floating robot that captures images of plastic in the water, which a computer on board processes to estimate the amount of plastic. This invention is documented on Instructables, an online platform for inventors, with the hope that others will improve upon it. The project exemplifies how students can immediately address local environmental issues through citizen science and invention.

05:01

🔬 Global Environmental Challenges and Empathy-Driven Solutions

The speaker recounts how their students, after being shocked by an image of a child cleaning an oil spill bare-handed in Bangladesh, used spectrometry to create a prototype sensor that could identify substances in water. They shipped this prototype to Bangladesh to help address the issue. The speaker, being half Japanese, also discusses the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and its ongoing impact on the Pacific Ocean. They describe an expedition with students to measure radioactivity levels around the Fukushima plant, using a topographical map and real-time data to understand the spread of radioactive dust. They collected seabed sediment samples to create a detailed map of radioactivity, aiming to improve the safety of local fishermen and寿司 consumers. The speaker emphasizes the progression from local to global environmental issues and the importance of using simple, open-source technologies. They conclude by advocating for honesty with children about environmental challenges, arguing that their imagination is crucial for inventing solutions, and highlight the need to prepare the next generation to care for the environment and take action.

Keywords

💡Citizen Science

Citizen Science refers to the participation of non-professionals in scientific research, typically through data collection or analysis. In the video, the speaker teaches citizen science and invention, engaging students in hands-on projects to address environmental issues like plastic pollution. This approach empowers students to become active participants in scientific discovery and problem-solving, reflecting the video's theme of education and innovation for social good.

💡Plastic Pollution

Plastic Pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects in the environment, causing harm to wildlife and ecosystems. The script mentions that over 80% of the oceans have plastic in them, highlighting the severity of the issue. The speaker and students are actively involved in cleaning beaches and developing technologies to detect and measure plastic particles, showcasing the video's focus on environmental stewardship and technological innovation.

💡Rapid Prototyping

Rapid Prototyping is a method of quickly creating a three-dimensional model of a design, often using digital technology. In the context of the video, rapid prototyping is used to develop a floating robot that can detect plastic particles in water. This concept is crucial as it demonstrates the video's message of leveraging quick, iterative design processes to solve real-world problems.

💡Spectrometer

A Spectrometer is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as the intensity as a function of wavelength. In the video, the students build a prototype of a spectrometer to help identify substances in water, like oil spills. This example illustrates the video's theme of applying scientific tools and methods to address environmental challenges.

💡Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster refers to the nuclear accidents that occurred after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, leading to significant releases of radioactive materials. The video discusses the ongoing leakage of cesium-137 into the Pacific Ocean and the efforts to measure and map radioactivity levels. This keyword is integral to the video's narrative, emphasizing the global impact of environmental disasters and the need for innovative solutions.

💡Instructables

Instructables is a website where people can share step-by-step instructions for a wide range of activities, often involving making or hacking physical objects. The video mentions documenting the invention of a floating robot on Instructables, highlighting the video's theme of open-source collaboration and the sharing of knowledge to improve and innovate.

💡Mega-Space

A Mega-Space, as mentioned in the video, is a large, industrial site transformed into a collaborative workspace focused on social and environmental impact. The speaker describes creating such a space in Hong Kong where adults and children can work together on various projects. This concept embodies the video's message of fostering creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving across generations.

💡Cesium-137

Cesium-137 is a radioactive isotope of cesium that can be hazardous to biological organisms, particularly in the event of nuclear accidents. The video discusses the leakage of cesium-137 from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean, emphasizing the long-term environmental and health implications of such incidents. This keyword is crucial for understanding the video's focus on the consequences of nuclear disasters and the importance of monitoring and mitigating their effects.

💡Spectroscopy

Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation, often used to identify and quantify substances based on their spectral fingerprints. In the video, the students use spectrometry to analyze water quality, particularly in the context of oil spills. This keyword is significant as it illustrates the video's theme of employing scientific techniques to address environmental issues.

💡Nuclear Power Plant

A Nuclear Power Plant is a facility that harnesses nuclear reactions to generate electricity. The video discusses the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which was severely damaged by the 2011 tsunami, leading to significant radioactive contamination. This keyword is essential for understanding the video's exploration of the environmental and health risks associated with nuclear energy and the importance of innovative solutions for monitoring and managing such risks.

💡Open-Source Technologies

Open-Source Technologies refer to tools or software whose source code is made available to the public, allowing for collaborative development and modification. The video emphasizes the use of open-source technologies in the creation of solutions for environmental problems, reflecting the video's theme of community-driven innovation and the democratization of technology for social and environmental impact.

Highlights

The importance of teaching children responsibility along with freedom.

The realization that adults often make messes and are not good at cleaning up after themselves.

Teaching citizen science and invention at the Hong Kong Harbour School.

The sad reality that over 80% of the oceans have plastic in them.

The inefficiency and cost of traditional methods of collecting plastic waste data.

Transforming a classroom into a workshop for inventing solutions to environmental problems.

Involving children in the design and building of a robot to collect plastic waste data.

The concept of rapid prototyping with children, using everyday items to create technology.

The creation of a floating robot to collect images of plastic in the ocean.

Documenting inventions on Instructables to encourage global collaboration.

Students using technology to address a local environmental issue in Hong Kong.

The impact of global news on students, motivating them to help others affected by environmental disasters.

Building a spectrometer prototype to help identify contaminants in water.

Shipping the spectrometer prototype to Bangladesh to assist in cleaning oil spills.

The personal connection to the Fukushima disaster and the desire to involve students in addressing its aftermath.

Creating a topographical map to simulate and understand the spread of radioactive materials.

Organizing an expedition to collect seabed sediment near the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The progression from local to global problem-solving in the classroom.

The establishment of a mega-space in Hong Kong for social and environmental impact projects.

The importance of not shielding children from the truth and involving them in inventing solutions.

Transcripts

When I was a kid, my parents would tell me,

"You can make a mess, but you have to clean up after yourself."

So freedom came with responsibility.

But my imagination would take me to all these wonderful places,

where everything was possible.

So I grew up in a bubble of innocence --

or a bubble of ignorance, I should say,

because adults would lie to us to protect us from the ugly truth.

And growing up, I found out that adults make a mess,

and they're not very good at cleaning up after themselves.

Fast forward, I am an adult now,

and I teach citizen science and invention at the Hong Kong Harbour School.

And it doesn't take too long

before my students walk on a beach and stumble upon piles of trash.

So as good citizens, we clean up the beaches --

and no, he is not drinking alcohol, and if he is, I did not give it to him.

(Laughter)

And so it's sad to say,

but today more than 80 percent of the oceans have plastic in them.

It's a horrifying fact.

And in past decades,

we've been taking those big ships out and those big nets,

and we collect those plastic bits that we look at under a microscope,

and we sort them,

and then we put this data onto a map.

But that takes forever, it's very expensive,

and so it's quite risky to take those big boats out.

So with my students, ages six to 15,

we've been dreaming of inventing a better way.

So we've transformed our tiny Hong Kong classroom into a workshop.

And so we started building this small workbench,

with different heights, so even really short kids can participate.

And let me tell you, kids with power tools are awesome and safe.

(Laughter)

Not really.

And so, back to plastic.

We collect this plastic and we grind it to the size we find it in the ocean,

which is very small because it breaks down.

And so this is how we work.

I let the imaginations of my students run wild.

And my job is to try to collect the best of each kid's idea

and try to combine it into something that hopefully would work.

And so we have agreed that instead of collecting plastic bits,

we are going to collect only the data.

So we're going to get an image of the plastic with a robot --

so robots, kids get very excited.

And the next thing we do -- we do what we call "rapid prototyping."

We are so rapid at prototyping

that the lunch is still in the lunchbox when we're hacking it.

(Laughter)

And we hack table lamps and webcams, into plumbing fixtures

and we assemble that into a floating robot that will be slowly moving through water

and through the plastic that we have there --

and this is the image that we get in the robot.

So we see the plastic pieces floating slowly through the sensor,

and the computer on board will process this image,

and measure the size of each particle,

so we have a rough estimate of how much plastic there is in the water.

So we documented this invention step by step

on a website for inventors called Instructables,

in the hope that somebody would make it even better.

What was really cool about this project was that the students saw a local problem,

and boom -- they are trying to immediately address it.

[I can investigate my local problem]

But my students in Hong Kong are hyperconnected kids.

And they watch the news, they watch the Internet,

and they came across this image.

This was a child, probably under 10, cleaning up an oil spill bare-handed,

in the Sundarbans, which is the world's largest mangrove forest in Bangladesh.

So they were very shocked,

because this is the water they drink, this is the water they bathe in,

this is the water they fish in -- this is the place where they live.

And also you can see the water is brown, the mud is brown and oil is brown,

so when everything is mixed up,

it's really hard to see what's in the water.

But, there's a technology that's rather simple,

that's called spectrometry,

that allows you see what's in the water.

So we built a rough prototype of a spectrometer,

and you can shine light through different substances

that produce different spectrums,

so that can help you identify what's in the water.

So we packed this prototype of a sensor,

and we shipped it to Bangladesh.

So what was cool about this project

was that beyond addressing a local problem,

or looking at a local problem,

my students used their empathy and their sense of being creative

to help, remotely, other kids.

[I can investigate a remote problem]

So I was very compelled by doing the second experiments,

and I wanted to take it even further --

maybe addressing an even harder problem, and it's also closer to my heart.

So I'm half Japanese and half French,

and maybe you remember in 2011 there was a massive earthquake in Japan.

It was so violent that it triggered several giant waves --

they are called tsunami --

and those tsunami destroyed many cities on the eastern coast of Japan.

More than 14,000 people died in an instant.

Also, it damaged the nuclear power plant of Fukushima,

the nuclear power plant just by the water.

And today, I read the reports

and an average of 300 tons

are leaking from the nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

And today the whole Pacific Ocean has traces of contamination of cesium-137.

If you go outside on the West Coast, you can measure Fukushima everywhere.

But if you look at the map, it can look like most of the radioactivity

has been washed away from the Japanese coast,

and most of it is now -- it looks like it's safe, it's blue.

Well, reality is a bit more complicated than this.

So I've been going to Fukushima every year since the accident,

and I measure independently and with other scientists,

on land, in the river --

and this time we wanted to take the kids.

So of course we didn't take the kids, the parents wouldn't allow that to happen.

(Laughter)

But every night we would report to "Mission Control" --

different masks they're wearing.

It could look like they didn't take the work seriously, but they really did

because they're going to have to live with radioactivity their whole life.

And so what we did with them

is that we'd discuss the data we collected that day,

and talk about where we should be going next --

strategy, itinerary, etc...

And to do this, we built a very rough topographical map

of the region around the nuclear power plant.

And so we built the elevation map,

we sprinkled pigments to represent real-time data for radioactivity,

and we sprayed water to simulate the rainfall.

And with this we could see that the radioactive dust

was washing from the top of the mountain into the river system,

and leaking into the ocean.

So it was a rough estimate.

But with this in mind, we organized this expedition,

which was the closest civilians have been to the nuclear power plant.

We are sailing 1.5 kilometers away from the nuclear power plant,

and with the help of the local fisherman,

we are collecting sediment from the seabed

with a custom sediment sampler we've invented and built.

We pack the sediment into small bags,

we then dispatch them to hundreds of small bags

that we send to different universities,

and we produce the map of the seabed radioactivity,

especially in estuaries where the fish will reproduce,

and I will hope that we will have improved

the safety of the local fishermen and of your favorite sushi.

(Laughter)

You can see a progression here --

we've gone from a local problem to a remote problem to a global problem.

And it's been super exciting to work at these different scales,

with also very simple, open-source technologies.

But at the same time, it's been increasingly frustrating

because we have only started to measure the damage that we have done.

We haven't even started to try to solve the problems.

And so I wonder if we should just take a leap

and try to invent better ways to do all these things.

And so the classroom started to feel a little bit small,

so we found an industrial site in Hong Kong,

and we turned it into the largest mega-space

focused on social and environmental impact.

It's in central Hong Kong,

and it's a place we can work with wood, metal, chemistry,

a bit of biology, a bit of optics,

basically you can build pretty much everything there.

And its a place where adults and kids can play together.

It's a place where kids' dreams can come true,

with the help of adults,

and where adults can be kids again.

Student: Acceleration! Acceleration!

Cesar Harada: We're asking questions such as,

can we invent the future of mobility with renewable energy?

For example.

Or, can we help the mobility of the aging population

by transforming very standard wheelchairs into cool, electric vehicles?

So plastic, oil and radioactivity are horrible, horrible legacies,

but the very worst legacy that we can leave our children is lies.

We can no longer afford to shield the kids from the ugly truth

because we need their imagination to invent the solutions.

So citizen scientists, makers, dreamers --

we must prepare the next generation

that cares about the environment and people,

and that can actually do something about it.

Thank you.

(Applause)