"Any suitable advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic."
- Arthur C. Clarke

Acting…like a scientist
By Nicholas J. Johnson

  When I was in Year 8, I was demoted from the top level science class to the class below. A new student had arrived at my school with an incredible scientific pedigree. Both of her parents were respected academics, she’d received nothing but straight A’s at her previous school and somebody had to leave the already full class to make way.

  That person was me.

  You are probably thinking that the reason for my sudden relegation was my poor grades or my terrible behaviour. However, as a solid B student with a penchant for apple polishing, I could not understand why it was me that belonged in the second tier class. My teacher took me aside and explained it to me. “We decided that you would be least affected by the move.” She said, shifting from foot to foot. “After all, your more likely to pursue a career in drama…not science.”

  At the tender age of 14, my science teacher was able to chart my future career path and extricate me from the world of science, plonking me firmly in the performing arts. Not only that, but she also reinforced in my mind the idea that science and drama are separate disciplines that do not, and should not, mix.

  15 years later, I think my science teacher would be confused by my chosen vocation. I have made a career for myself in drama...and science. As a performing artist, I travel Victoria presenting a show called Bad Science in which I use every theatrical skill in the book from drama and comedy to magic and even escapology to help students understand how science can be manipulated and misused. I perform  a classic Snake Oil Sales Pitch, with several students and one poor teacher as my guinea pigs, in order to highlight how advertisers misuse the scientific method to sell products. I recreate the famous fakir stunt of lying on a bed of nails to show how weight distribution works and how science can often be confused with the supernatural. I even perform a frontal lobotomy on myself to help students understand the structure of the human skull and how charlatan doctors fake surgery!

A total front labotomy with hammer, nail and nose

  To my relief, the students react. They laugh and cheer at their victories, they argue when they disagree and, most satisfying of all, they question their previous assumptions about science and scientific facts. Performances of this type bring the science to life for the students. It places it in a framework that is relevant, interesting and easily accessible.

  This is not to suggest that science is some sort of bitter pill that must be wrapped up in drama and action in order for students to swallow it. The goal of these performances is not to trick students into enjoying learning science. Science is already interesting and enjoyable. However, what theatre and live performance bring to science is a sense of immediacy and familiarity that straight theory and even practical experimentation often lack.

  In the show, Bad Science, there is one particular scientific ‘fact’ that almost all students are familiar with. Most students believe that when they flush a toilet in the northern hemisphere, the Coriolis effect causes the water to go down the drain clockwise. When they flush a toilet in the southern hemisphere, the water turns anticlockwise. This is, of course, not true. The Coriolis effect only affects large bodies of water over extended periods of time.

  However, this scientific myth has been cemented in the minds of a generation of students because of its inclusion in ‘The Simpsons’. In the episode ‘Bart Vs. Australia’, the toilet flushing myth is not only explained, it is recreated, dramatised, parodied and used as a vital plot point. The suspect science is so well explained and brought to life over the episode that sometimes, even after the truth has been explained to students, they will continue to argue because they “saw it on TV”. Viewers of the episode make an emotional attachment to the science.

Bart investigates the Corelios effect

  In the end, my teacher was wrong. Drama and science are not two separate disciplines. They not only complement each other but share the same basic goal. Performance is an art form and the role of all good art, like good science, is not just to change the way in which people think and feel but to change the way in which the observe the world around them. Just as scientific innovation changes our perception of world, a great movie or a thought provoking play will adjust an audience’s world view in the same way. The creativity and emotional timbre of art is the perfect catalyst for igniting the curiosity and exhilaration that makes great scientists and science students.

  Even if we don’t get straight As.

Nicholas J. Johnson is a professional entertainer and educator. His show, Bad Science, tours schools in Victoria. www.funnybones.com.au/badscience.html

Pantidos, Panagiotis 2001, ‘The Use of Drama in Science Education: The Case of "Blegdamsvej Faust’, Science and Education, v10 n1-2 p107-17 Jan-Mar 2001

Tobin, Eugene 1998, ‘The Art of Science Education’, Hamilton Alumni Review, Summer 1998.

 

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