Stanford University biologist Tom McFadden has produced six rap videos as a teaching aid for his students, and one of them — "Regulatin’ Genes" — has received more than 50,000 views on YouTube and was featured on a New York Times science blog, reports the San Jose Mercury News. "Ultimately, the videos were just to get the kids excited about the material and make a really fun experience for them," said McFadden, 22. In each video, McFadden parodied a popular hip-hop song, rewriting the lyrics to explain biology’s complicated vocabulary. In "Regulatin’ Genes," he used Jay-Z’s "Money Ain’t a Thang" to discuss transcription factors, the proteins inside a cell that turn genes on and off. "The songs are incredibly clever," said Margaret Fuller, a Stanford biology professor. "Fitting in with the rhymes and the poetry and the rhythms, there are real scientific facts."
Stanford instructor’s rap videos teach complicated material
By eSchool News
April 10th, 2009
