I definitely think schools, especially higher ed, underutilize the arts for learning.

Good question! I make videos that are sometimes just peaking interest in science and I hope that they then follow me or other scientists and start to do more of their own research, but often I receive questions from my followers that are more specific, so I answer those too. Some of my videos are very basic and some are much more advanced, so I have a combination of followers who are undergraduates in Biochemistry and many who have very little science exposure, so I also try to make videos giving advice to students who want more or pointing them in the right direction.  

Go Beavs! 

Besides follower numbers, I can see things like number of video and profile views, how many times videos have been shared, what countries they're in, etc. so this all helps me know what videos people get the most value from, and that's the most quantitative.

Qualitatively, I regularly receive messages and comments from people that tell me what value they get from my TikTok. Often this has been things like "your video helped me open up a conversation with someone who didn't want the vaccine and now they're getting vaccinated!" or "I look up to you as a woman or LGBTQ+ scientists!" or "I didn't know this but it's awesome!". I think as long as I'm receiving messages and comments like this then I'm still making a positive impact :)

Hi Sierra, I do hope to continue to do this! I'm finishing up my PhD work soonish but hoping to continue making TikToks as well as maybe using other mediums as my career progresses. 

Often my response is: if traditional methods worked perfectly, we'd have more equal and diverse representation of economic class, gender, and race across STEM, which we clearly don't, so whatever we're doing has to change and grow. In my experience, people find science, and information in general, much less intimidating presented through arts, especially arts mirroring popular culture (trending songs, dances, memes, etc).

So cool! I have seen some of Raven's videos, but haven't seen Mike's channel, thanks for sharing! The information from high school I remember the most was definitely put into song :)

This is a good question. There's a function on TikTok called "duet"ing where you can dance side by side with a video, and I see people interact with me videos like this sometimes, but most users don't actually make videos, just watch and comment and enjoy watching those with "Creator" profiles, but I think if I set it up with the intention of trying to get others to dance with me, maybe I'd get some more feedback that way. For example, for this STEM for ALL video, lots of my followers responded in the comments, but did not make their own videos in response to my prompt, but did get some! 

Good question. I did give up some other outreach efforts that I had been doing before so that I could focus on this once I started to gain some TikTok popularity, and I've been fortunate to not have to formally teach for the past year and a half since I'm on a research assistantship now with this research project. Most videos don't take me too much time, I used to be a dancer so I learn choreography pretty fast. So I usually learn dances at home, and then film them in lab while I'm waiting on something to incubate or something (lots of waiting in biochem), then do the editing at home in the evening. And the videos of actual lab work just require me to remember to take some clips while I'm doing the work I have to do anyway. Lots of multitasking but some videos take longer than others for sure. 

At first I just thought it was a fun way to show a scientist in a humanizing, fun way. But I started getting lots of messages and comments from younger people who look up to me, or from people who feel like they're really learning something new, so now that's my motivation. Plus, there are so many bad people and false information online, so I think it's important for scientists to have a strong presence on these platforms. 

I come up with content a few different ways. I have to try and keep up with what dances/songs/etc are trending, so I'll watch some of them and see if I can put a science spin on them. Often I receive questions from followers in the video comments or in the Q&A feature of TikTok, and I'll answer them through dance or sometimes just by talking and overlaying music. Other times, I have an idea while I'm explaining to someone in real life or in the lab, I'll realize "oh I bet most of my followers wouldn't know that, but it's pretty cool", so I'll make videos about that. I actually find that I have too many ideas and not enough time.