Baby’s First Pitch!
April 2019
How do you get middle schoolers excited about science lessons?
Culture 🤝 Curriculum
The first time I realized my thinking could make an impact starts in 8th-grade science. Turns out, mixing the mundane with the culturally massive gets people listening and I’ve been dot-connecting ever since.
Ask
Create a video to teach your class about a given topic.
Objective
Explain Newton’s Three Laws of Motion in a way that doesn’t put anyone to sleep.
Strategy
Bridge a high-friction educational concept with a high-engagement cultural behavior to raise attention and comprehension.
Big Idea
Put Newton’s Laws where the audience already lives, inside the game they couldn’t stop playing.
Execution
An educational video that uses Fortnite gameplay to demonstrate Newton’s Laws. Humor, in-game physics, and visual storytelling that explains the science without feeling like school.
Impact
Teacher-approved (and then some).
Picked for a county-wide exhibition.
Still being shown to unsuspecting middle schoolers 8 years later.
Sparked the realization that creativity + culture + strategy = attention and planted the seed for everything that came after.