Whitney Pennington Rogers: Hello, TED members. I am Whitney Pennington Rogers. I'm a curator here at TED and I am so excited to be here with you today for this live member event. I'd like to give a big thank you to our TED member community for supporting our nonprofit mission to illuminate ideas that spark imagination, embrace possibility, and catalyze impact. And if you're watching this today on YouTube, welcome. We are so excited to give you a sneak peek of our TED membership programming. Before we kick things off, I want to give you a few ways you can engage with today's program. We invite members to share questions for our guests today by putting them directly in the chat. We will look out for these to weave them into today's program. And even if we don't get to all of them, we love to hear what's on your mind. So, please keep sharing and reacting in the com in the comments. We'd love for you to chat with others joining us from all over the world throughout this event. I'm tuning in from TED's headquarters here in New York, and we would love to hear where you're watching us from as well.

Whitney Pennington Rogers: All right. Now, I want to think for a moment about your favorite teacher. Maybe some of you are students right now and you don't have to pull back into the far reaches of your memory like I do, but I want you to think about this person and the things that made them so special. How excited they might have made you feel. How they made the subject they were teaching you come alive and made you want to lean in during their lessons and not zone out. I think for a lot of us, teachers like this maybe feel like the exception instead of the rule. And when it comes to science, maybe even more so. But what if that didn't have to be the case? What if science could be the class that kids cannot wait to get to because it makes them laugh and beg to try everything out there for themselves? Our guest today has spent a lot of time trying to make science lessons just like that. He's a former NASA engineer, a YouTube phenom with tens of millions of subscribers, and is undoubtedly one of the most beloved science communicators of our time. No question about this. Earlier this year, he took the TED stage at our flagship conference to share his boldest project yet, a $60 million bet on the next generation of problem solvers and a new STEM curriculum designed to make science the class kids actually want to be in. That talk has since become one of our most viewed talks of 2026 so far. and he's here today to share more with us about that project, the philosophy behind what he does, and break down how he sparks excitement about science again and again for kids of all ages all over the world. Please give a warm welcome to Mark Robber.

Mark Rober: Hello. How's everyone doing?

Whitney Pennington Rogers: Hey Mark, how's it going?

Mark Rober: Good.

Whitney Pennington Rogers: Good. Thanks so much for being here with us today. So I mentioned this right at the top but um the talk that you gave is one of our highest viewed talks of this year. So congratulations first on that.

Mark Rober: Let's go. Let's go.

Whitney Pennington Rogers: Yeah. Yeah. And you of course you spent a lot of time talking in front of a camera and in fact the talk sort of starts out in a similar way to a lot of the content you create where there's a science lesson. But how how would you say like that experience was different from everything else you create?

Mark Rober: um speaking on TED. You mean the TED stage? Yeah, it was um live. I mean, not live, but it was like me in front of an audience and like I'm very comfortable with um you know, being in front of a camera at this point. Uh but I'm like I I never I don't let people sing happy birthday to me and in a room of 10 people. So, and I I never grew up being that kid who wanted to be on stage. So for me it was a terrifying first of all. I've never practiced for something more in my life, but I knew it would be a giant opportunity for like the mission and what we're trying to accomplish. So it's like I really treat it as like a growth mindset opportunity. Like I had two speaker coaches. I probably practiced it 80 times and and and and for the I generally do not like public speaking for the first time ever. like I was a quarter of the way through the talk and I'm like this is fun. Like this is cool. Like I'm enjoying this. So it was awesome. It was an awesome experience.

Whitney Pennington Rogers: That's great. And it sounds like that in some ways it's I guess sort of a surprising thing that that came out of out of the experience. Look, what has the response been from people who have seen the talk since you gave it?

Mark Rober: Really? I mean incredibly positive. The thing about TED is it's such a, you know, it's such a revered and like there's so much positive association. Like if you're on the TED stage, like you have an idea worth sharing and so, you know, different than just like a YouTube video I might put put out to do it on TED like you immediately are like, okay, this is a an idea that has risen above, you know, these other ideas, so it's worth my attention. And so that alone, especially as we look to, you know, get help fund this very audacious project, um, that that's been really helpful for us and the response has just been like 100% overwhelmingly positive and it's been really heartwarming.

Whitney Pennington Rogers: That's awesome. Well, so you you just alluded to this and of the big reveal in your talk was the public announcement of your free STEM science curriculum for for kids ages I guess grades three through eight, class crunch labs. Um, and you talk a lot about that in the talk and that's a big a big thing that you you put forward. What what led you to create it?

Mark Rober: I mean and to be fair like I don't talk about the talk's maybe like 14 minutes. I talk about it for like 2 minutes, but the whole point of the talk is to lead up to that in the sense that like peeling back the curtain on how we hide the vegetables and make learning science fun because if there's any subject in school that should be fun, heaven forbid it should be science. So it's like so it's like we kind of peeled back the car on how we do it and it's like okay now that you understand how the sausage is made this is the this is the kind of sausage we will be making for the next five years. Um, and so, and so like the the impetus for this came actually when my one of my buddies, his his kid came into the room and she was she she was like in probably eighth grade at the time. Like, what are you learning in science? I'm just curious, right? Because I do this on my channel. And she's like, "Oh, we just watched a Bill Nye video today." She showed me a worksheet that been copied probably 10,000 times. You know, each time you copy, there's like an artifact that comes along.

Whitney Pennington Rogers: Yeah.

Mark Rober: And I was like, and I love Bill, like he's a personal friend, but it's also those videos were made in the 90s, and this is a generation that has grown up on Tik Tok and YouTube, and there's like different tricks to, you know, reach their brains in engaging ways. And I'm just like, man, we we should we should do something like that for this generation because I know, you know, I've had to earn 18 billion views because on in YouTube, you could click on anything else, right? So, it's like you kind of get trained by the algorithm on how to make things engaging. And that was the start of it. And I one of my superpowers, I think, is naive optimism where it's like it seems really easy when I have an idea. And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, we could do that. Sure. [laughter] That's that shouldn't be a problem." It's been so much harder, but like I'm always continuously naively optimistic. That's like, "Ah, that'll be fine." So, it's been a complete journey. It's it's evolved to be way more than I was initially planning on doing, but it's so clear that this is the right way to do it. This is the right approach. It needs to be done, and we're the right people to do it. So, we're just going full steam ahead.

Whitney Pennington Rogers: I love that. And you and you mentioned in the talk that you've been working on it for a couple years, but it'll be four years before you're really finished with this work. So, what's available to people now and what's still to come?

Mark Rober: Yeah, I think lessons one through four or I should say units. So, there's a

Guest: states put out. Um, quick adjustment. Um, so we're now done. We're 10% of the way like publicly out there. It's it's sort of like a beta and then and we have to do 40. So, and we're we're on maybe number 11 like kind of working through it. We go in different stages. But for me, yeah, it's the next four years straight, one week out of my month, I'm essentially volunteering to make these videos. And we have a team of 50 people. Uh, just an incredible team. I think 30 of them are former teachers themselves or current teachers. So, this really is this is by no means is it like I'm like blessing the world with my content. Like this is a this is a it's a collaborative project with all the best teachers in the country. Um and so my thing to them is like look, your kids know who I am. They enjoy our videos. I'm at your service. Help us help us make this. And so that's how even we've gotten to this point. And that's the three beta, the three units that are up there are kind of like our, you know, we're testing it. We're getting tons of feedback. Great. Let's change this. Like we just want to make something that teachers can use and then make it totally free.

Host: I love that. And and you you said that it's uh you think it's the most important thing you'll ever do. And I remember watching you give the talk and you got a little emotional as you were sharing this. And if you can remember back to being on the stage, what what were you thinking about in that moment when you got really choked up?

Guest: Um, I don't know. Like I I really do have such a soft spot in my heart for teachers. Like if I just think about teachers even like right now a little bit like I get a little emotional. It's like like teach it's so tough especially today to be a teacher just because of a lot of factors and it's kind of the most important job in on the planet and so and they're not compensated as well as they like we should be ashamed I think I said that like we should be ashamed of like the support teachers actually get um for the importance of what they do and um yeah I don't know I just I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the underdog and for the especially an underdog who really really really really deserves it. And so if I'm in a position to help them out then it just feels like you know what is life but working hard at work worth doing and like this feels like the most worthwhile work and like you know the most impact that I can you know have and affect change in like the most positive way because it's just no one's done anything like this. And then when we're ready to release it too, you know, a lot of times with edtech and things, adoption is so hard, but like we're already teachers already show my videos in 40% of classrooms, but it's jello pools and squirrel obstacle courses and glitter bombs. It's not necessarily totally aligned with the curriculum. So, all right, let's take all those tricks, make something that is totally aligned, exceeds all the state science standards. Um, and and and and then put it out there. And then I'll just tell, you know, I could tap a mic and get 50 million people to listen. So I'll just say, hey, if you know, tell your teacher you want to watch this and you want you want to do this for your class curriculum and I'll sell that directly to the teachers and we'll have a map of the whole United States in every single school district and we're going to have three teacher and three parent volunteers in every single district. So like we we're gonna roll this out in a way that like no one's ever been able to or done. And then we'll also go, you know, properly through the states and work with the senators because a lot of friends who are involved in that and who've seen the TED talk and want to help. So, it's just like from for bottoms down, top up. Um, we're just going to get this out there and and not because it's like I have skin in the game, but like we're making sure it's five times better than anything else. like we're independent folks are like running actual like curriculum studies and versus control in a classroom. So I don't want to waste my time or my money or anyone else's money and time if this isn't way better. Like that's the hypothesis. So we're just going to tweak it until it is way better and just get this goodness out in the world for free.

Host: It's a a big project for you but a big project for all of us. It's it seems like it's just going to really change things for a lot of people. Well, so we have a lot of members who are who are watching us and um sharing comments and questions and please keep send sharing those questions. We're going to get to some of them later uh in this conversation, but I know a lot of folks, especially some of our younger members who are watching, are really interested to hear more about you and your journey. And so I'd love to talk a little bit about that. Um, I think most people who follow you know that you have this background as an engineer at NASA and Apple and and that before you started doing the work that you do, when would you say that your love of science began?

Guest: Um, I mean, like from a from an early age, I think I just had a, you know, I think if anyone here has more than one child, I know kids come pre-programmed and I just had an inclination towards kind of math and science and the physical world, you know, taking apart the remote control. Um, also just like coming up with cool ideas. Like the first job I ever wanted to do was be a an architect, but specifically designing McDonald's play. So I remember I did my like white sheet of paper and my pencil and my rule. And I was like, "Okay, you're going to start here and the ball pit's going to be here. There's going to be these tubes. I got all these cool designs." which is kind of full circle moment because now we have Crunch Labs just like our headquarters which is like a Willy Wonka factory for engineering that has secret passageways and foam pits and you know pistons and pianos that play themselves and and staircases that's an infinite slinky staircase and a robot you can play rock paper scissors against that you can never beat. So it's like that actually my first job I wanted I eventually got just in the very securest route. Um, so yeah, and then and then I think specifically when I took high school physics, I was just like, "Oh, this feels very good that like I can predict the world around me with math and equations and there's one right answer and it doesn't matter where I grew up or what language I speak, you know, if I drop this rock off the building, like we will all come up with the same answer." And then not just that, you can literally predict the future. You can build something that you can send to Mars that having never gone there, it's like, well, we have the equations. It should actually hit the planet if we launch at this point when it's, you know, 90 m million miles away. If we launch at this velocity, at this trajectory, like eventually those two should hit and then we could get from the upper atmosphere 25,000 miles an hour down to down to a comfortable 6 miles an hour to land in seven minutes. It's like you can predict all of these things and that it's like a crystal ball that actually works and that which is very appealing to me.

Host: And a lot of folks who have shared some questions about your your story or your journey uh are just curious about engineering specifically like how did you know that that was the path when you think about all the things you could be in the STEM world that this was where you wanted to to go?

Guest: Yeah, I think specifically mechanical engineering really appealed to me versus like electrical because I like to be able to see and create and build something physical I can touch. Um because there's a lot of different engineering. Um and I don't know, it's just one of those things like the more I I I got into it, the more I was like, I like this. And then straight out of school, I got a job. I just got really lucky to work at NASA. you know, my resume was just in a pile of

Mark Rober: Right place at the right time. Um, and I think that what's the saying something like fortune is what happened when preparation meets luck or something. And certainly I got a little lucky. And yeah, and then I was at NASA for a decade. Seven of those were working on the Mars Curiosity Rover. So my hardware is up there on Mars. I think currently it's 120 million miles away. You can see it in the night sky. a little red dot and I know that like I touched and designed and built and tested and integrated something that's on that specific dot in the sky um is really cool. Another actually another really cool thing about Mars is really fun is there's not really a lot of oxygen. So things don't break down and like rust basically. So long after us humans are gone and all of our structures and everything has crumbled away and nature has just taken over everything in a million years, aliens will come and they'll see these rovers on Mars and just be like, "What the heck? Where did these come from?" Like what? I don't get it.

Interviewer: It's cool to... Yeah. You've like built these things that will out outlast and outlive you and and probably all of us on this call in some way. all of us and everything we've built like you know what I mean like in a million years they'll still be there and every single structure on Earth is crumbled away into dust. So it's like pretty wild. Yeah. Well I mean it's it's clear that from doing that work at NASA at Apple that you were making a big impact already. And how did you then decide to make this pivot into creating science content full-time?

Mark Rober: I mean it was just a happy little accident. Um, I would say I've always enjoyed like I mean ultimately I what really happened is I had a Halloween costume idea where I had a I cut a hole in a shirt in the front and the back, put some like red paint around the edge and then taped an iPad to the front and iPad to the back. And if you do a FaceTime call, looks like there's a hole in your body because the front camera will show like your hand moving here and then it'll display it on the back screen. And uh and people at the party was like, "That's a cool costume." Was like, "Well, I should go upload it to YouTube." This new fangled website called YouTube. And I did. And you know, it was on the front page of CNN the next day. It had like a couple million views. And I was like, "Whoa, this feels really cool." And I have more ideas. So then I basically just uploaded one video a month since then for 15 years. And I've always you always I thought at some point I would run out of ideas, but you always have it's like a carrot dangling in front of a horse. I always have about a year's worth of ideas that just like it's always there.

Mark Rober: Um like the next video I did was I went to the zoo and if you use like the front-facing camera on your phone and then hold it up to like the monkey cage and then record. So, like you record, you know, a video like this and then hold it up to the monkeys. You can see at the lake right now. Um, the monkeys are so interested in it because they want to see themselves. It's almost like a mirror, but you're recording. So, you get this incredible footage and they come like right up to your lens. You can see like their pupils dilate. And like an idea like that, everyone had a phone. I love ideas that are really simple and like the highest compliment I could get is like, "Oh, like how did I not think of that?" I'm like, "That's good." Because then you took ingredients that people had and you came up with a a very cool way to synthesize and put them together. And so even today in my builds, to the extent that we can make them out of junk you have lying around your house, that's way more engaging to your brain than if it's like, "Oh, I just paid a ton of money to get these really fancy pieces of equipment." Because then kids watch it and heck, adults watch it and they're like, "Oo, what should like around my house? What could I do with the with the things that I have, you know?"

Interviewer: Yeah. I mean, and you know, you liken what you do to sort of like hiding the vegetables, right? Like you're essentially wrapping like important hard to swallow things in glitter and things like that. Um, and you do it using like humor and spectacle and um, you know, now you're offering the blueprint for people to to do this themselves. And I'm I'm sure there are a lot of teachers though who watch and think, you know, well, but I'm I'm not Mark Rober and I can't do it the way that you do it. So, like, what would you say to people who feel like they don't have the the personality, I guess, to pull some of this off?

Mark Rober: Yeah, I would say I mean and this is like the point in the TED talk was like the trick to make a video go viral. The trick to sort of like remembering this is kind of like how I framed it is like you just have to feel something in your heart. Like if you want to reach someone's brain, you have to enter through the heart. You can't you can't start here. This is why, you know, if you're trying to convince someone out of like a being a conspiracy theorist or something, someone who believes the earth is flat, you can't go to them with a list of facts and like try and reach their brain of why it's not flat. Like you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. Like the reason they got into that is they had a friend and like it was a community and they're feeling they're getting something here that feels really worthwhile and so you gotta start here and for me that is in the TED talk this trash can full of ping pong balls right or it's someone stole a package from my house and everyone knows that feeling so I you know engineered a glitter bomb with fart spray to get them back that records them on four phones and uploads it to the cloud. like you have to evoke some kind of visceral reaction for people to remember it, for people to care, to affect change. And so I think that's step one.

Mark Rober: And even in the talk, I did this like in a meta I don't know how many people even picked up on this, but at the end when I was like talking about class crunch labs and you know I said like so to all those teachers out there in the trenches like I want you to know reinforcements are on the way. Like when I got to that punchline, like I was very adamant that Ted let me like play music, not just in the video, but in the auditorium because it's like this is me demonstrating my point of how you hide the vegetables, of how you get people to remember, of how you have impact is like you have to feel something here. And music helps with that. And so, you know, if if if you're a teacher out there and you're feeling like you're not like reaching the kids, like start here, not here. You're not It's not like if you just used a slight different word to explain it, you know, then it's going to work. Like, they don't they don't care what you know until they know that you care and that it it kind of speaks to that. And so I think if you if you start them knowing that you care even if it's just like in your level of effort and like paying attention to them like you will you will I think you'll find it's easier to reach them here and that this look this is the beauty of class crunch labs too is like I do realize that you know this not everyone not people have different skill sets and abilities right and for whatever reason the way we teach science we have solved a lot of that motivation gap, which is like 90% of the challenge of teaching. And so it's like, let's team up. Like I can't do this on my own. You can't just play a video in a class and expect it to actually teach them. Like, but let's team up. So that's the whole point of class crunch labs is I kick it off with a video and then the teacher takes it over and it's like asking engaging questions and like getting them going and then I come back with the video and I throw it back to the teacher. So like that's the only way this could work and that's kind of the premise behind it

Interviewer: that it will it will feel like sort of co-teaching with you in a way

Mark Rober: 100% it'll feel like

Speaker A: and I'm kind of just like teeing it up for them you know and just like hey kids I'm gonna say this thing now your teacher's gonna take it from here you know and they become the focal point and I just keep like teeing it up you know giving them an

Speaker B: I love that. I mean, and and I guess for people who who watch and and there's obviously so many who marvel at your ability to kind of make this this stuff that might be dense and difficult for folks really easy to to process and digest. Like can you share a little bit about your process and the maybe some of the things you do before you hit record or when you feel like you're making a video and is and it isn't working that really helps to turn things around that maybe people wouldn't guess you do?

Speaker A: I think what people will be surprised to see is just how much work goes into a video that, you know, I had 10,000 hours worth of squirrels to make a video that was 18 minutes long. And that's not an exaggeration, right? Like we film a lot of our shots just on phones because um like it just it's more authentic. It's more approachable. Like your guard is up less. It doesn't feel like this super polished thing that like I'm I'm I'm coming. You know, if you if Discovery Channel, if they have a great TV show that's super polished, if you put it on YouTube, it gets almost no views because that's not the agreement with the audience. They're looking for authenticity. They're looking for it's more of a connection thing. It's more personal. And so, you know, I think people are surprised. In fact, I know anytime they film with me, like how many times I have to say the stupid sentence to to say it right. And by the way, the sentence that I'm saying that I'm even struggling to get out right, uh I have spent, you know, at least an an hour uh potentially. Sometimes I will spend 30 minutes trying to get five sentences down to four and a half or just say it a little bit better way. So, and and this is still true after 15 years. like I'm a little bit better at it, but faster at it, but it's still a tremendous amount of work to make a 15 to 20 minute video for YouTube. Um, and I think

Speaker A: >> and so I think that's it. Like the attention and the care and the work that goes into something I think is people underestimate that and and and so then it's like, okay, that's daunting. How am I supposed to do something like that? But like go back and watch my early videos and I love it because you know speaking of growth mindset and like why I wanted to do the TED talk to learn. It's like so cringe and like embarrassing of like you know the iPad one I was talking about. I'm like so here's an idea for like a Halloween costume. You can't hear me. I'm not looking at the camera. Like my a effect is just completely off. The angles are terrible. Um but I love it. I genuinely love that you can watch that and then watch my most recent video and you can see the growth that has occurred and I love that it's public and it's out there. Like if anything, that should be most inspirational part. By the way, it's not just me. Pick any of your favorite YouTubers and go back and watch their first video versus their last video. Um and and so that's the point is like you just got to do it a bunch and eventually you get better, but there's no shortcut to it. Um, and so I didn't start by like, you know, it did take me a long time to make even like a twominute video at first, and now it still takes a long time, but they're 18-inute videos, and I've like upped my quality with them. But there's just no shortcut besides just getting in there and and lifting the hammer and pounding the nails.

Speaker B: And it seems like that applies for really anything you do, but definitely in in I guess you know speaking to like when you first started to where you are now, you you know, you mentioned at one point during our conversation that this is a generation of of kids who are consuming things differently. It's not you know, it's not Bill Nye's uh you know, science generation of consumers. Um, and and I guess when you think about where kids are today, do you think there's a a bigger appetite for for the kind of content youre creating now than there might have been a decade ago because of how people are looking at stuff online?

Speaker A: >> Yeah, it's a good question. I would say like I mean human brains don't change that much from a single generation to a single generation. I mean it takes hundreds if not thousands of generations to like have us evolve. So I think the raw DNA was always there, but just like the ability um I think like yeah the ability the fact that YouTube even exists that you know when I grew up you'd have to wake up on Saturday if you want to see a cartoon set your alarm and you get two hours of it on like ABC on Saturday morning and now you can just like every cartoon that is ever invented every single episode is available in like a window. So, it's like you have all this content here. Um, which is a which is a blessing and a curse. It's like it's it makes it challenging. You know, I I have to constantly up up update sort of how Im doing what I'm doing to stay, you know, the audience appetite can change and what used to be spectacle and interesting and make you have that visual reaction 10 years ago like it takes more now, right? So it is this almost like arms race of of keeping the content interesting and relevant um such that I can evoke that visceral reaction and then reach the brain with like the cool thing I want them to remember. But I it's a challenge but it's one I welcome and I think it's really fun and it keeps it fresh and interesting for me, you know.

Speaker B: >> Well, I'd love to start bringing in some questions from the members. We have one from Sarah S which kind of feels connected to this. Um they ask they say some of the most pressing topics of our day are unfortunately not always fun and light-hearted and I was wondering how do we still get to deep understanding of an area that might require some honestly some boring aspects as well to get a solid grounding in a topic. Um or do you just start with the fun engagement and then hope that it brings them far enough that where they'll stay in for the boring parts?

Speaker A: Like look, my my role is not to teach you everything about their every, you know, everything that is to know. Like I would struggle to make an engaging video about GAAP accounting practices in the United States from the 50s to the 70s like heard. My role is to be a a a fire starter in in in like in curiosity, you know, especially in the brains of the young folks where the clay hasn't fully hardened. And and then that will get you excited, that aha, like getting addicted to that aha moment of like, oo, that felt really good to not know something and then to know something. And so therefore, I get to kind of cherrypick topics that I know will be engaging um and and package it in a video where at the end you don't regret the time you just spent. You're just like, "Oh yeah, like I'm I'm glad I did that and I'm glad I now know this and that made me curious about seven other things that I now want to like go and find out about." So um I don't disagree with that that it is not not like some topics are harder than others. What however any topic you pick there is a spectrum on how to make it interesting and not interesting and like and I would always bias towards the right of the bell curve of finding the way to make it as interesting as possible.

Speaker B: I mean, and I think when you think about what you're offering with Class Crunch Lab, sort of this opportunity to redesign the way some people are thinking about uh about how they present this kind of information. We have a question from Sherrod S, who asks, "If we could take a wrecking ball to US K to2 education, what are the the three big changes you would make to help prepare us for tomorrow?"

Speaker A: >> Um, I don't know. Like it's too like you can't you can't you can't come in and like change change needs to happen with a carrot not a stick especially from someone in my position right I am not in the like to affect

Speaker A: change with a stick and like we're changing and doing all this like impossible but if I just offer something that's way better take something like Uber versus taxis like when Uber came around and everyone has phone. It was just like so much better of an experience that change happened organically very quickly, right?

Speaker A: >> So like a question like this like I don't know [clears throat] like and I kind of don't care. But here's what I do know is that I can do this and teach this in a way that's way more engaging and I can solve the motivation gap and I'm going to start there. And I think that is a way that will be way more effective in 25 years from now at affecting change than if I'm like we got to restructure the whole system make all these systemic really hard changes.

Speaker A: start with like the goodness, you know, get that trust and scale and then, you know, trust times scale equals impact. And then and now that I have a voice and now that I have impact, now I can go back and be like, okay, and on top of that, we're going to make these I'm going to suggest these changes and and now I have a voice and power to do that. But you got to start with something that you can offer that people will naturally come to you versus like forcing people to come to you.

Speaker A: And I think we've, you know, we've got something like that. Like it's very clear to me that we can impact a lot of change just by taking all these tricks we learned of hiding the vegetables of solving that motivation gap and trying to package that up and put that out at scale. And so that's that's what our approach is.

Speaker A: So it's a good question like what are the three things? I don't know. to be honest, I haven't even studied it in that way and looked systemically about but I but I do know what I can solve is is the motivation gap and we'll start there and and then at that point and honestly I think that does solve [snorts] 90% of it

Speaker A: and then at that point the specifics of how districts report to a thing that's easy and that's kind of just like minor tweaks versus the fundamental shift which is just making science interesting and engaging. So then kids will actually come to it and want to do it versus feeling like they have to be forced to do it.

Speaker B: >> I mean, and I I I think that the the piece where you're working with the curriculum and you're working with with schools where there's that in-person piece, this sort of speaks to how kids can actually engage with this in in real life with with a with real people. And of course, there's like a debate, you know, that's happening out there about screens and kids and attention. And of course, you're most successful people on the planet at capturing uh people, especially kids attentions on screens. So, how do you think I guess when you when you factor the work you're doing into it, how do you think about the the role you play in in that conversation? And

Speaker A: >> yeah, I think an important part about it actually is that um and one of the early feedbacks we've got from these studies that they're doing. A big part that I I just briefly touched on the talk is we have the videos, we have the teacher leading them, but there's these hands-on activities where you're actually like

Speaker A: say for example for kinetic energy, actually for potential energy, this is a really fun one. You build a little a little tower and then you know those water blobs that like you see sometimes at lake where someone jumps on and then someone goes flying.

Speaker A: >> Well for potential energy you know the higher you well we actually don't say this but we we started out with this lesson that's the anchoring phenomenon. So you're like that is interesting. We're showing people flying show a car go down and like a crash test dummy go flying like all these visual things to get you hooked.

Speaker A: But then in your classroom, you get a um you get like a ziplockc bag and you make your own blob and you make your own little tower and and then you have a little guy that goes flying and and we don't tell you the equation for potential energy, which is I'll say it here, which is mass times gravity times height, mgh. You just start dropping different things.

Speaker A: And what you start to notice is that only two things affect how your guy goes flying. the higher you raise the thing that you're dropping that somehow seems to have an effect. And also if it's same height but heavier also seems to have effect and send your guy. So you're kind of like Scooby-Dooing your way to this equation without us even giving you. So you get like an intuition for it which is much more valuable than just memorizing an equation.

Speaker A: But what's really fun is like the guy that goes flying is this little crash test dummy. And these can be really expensive that like force sensors to measure how much geforce. But what we do like are very very creative toy engineers at Crunch Labs. He's like product designers graduated top of their class from MIT and Yale and Princeton, but they're just missiondriven and geniuses. It's a little um cutout,

Speaker A: but then for the head, for the arms and the legs, it's paper clips. So, that is like the world's cheapest G4 like shock sensor because when it goes flying, the more energy it had, the more a paper clip's going to fall off. Oh my gosh, he lost his head or like his arms tweaked, right?

Speaker A: >> Um and so the constraint I've given the toy engineers, you know, these product designers with engineering degrees is like it can't for a classroom. It can't cost $10. It can't cost $5. It has to cost zero dollars. Literally has to be made from just stuff teachers have lying around the classroom where you'd find in the trash can.

Speaker A: And so for kinetic energy, we build these little cars which are note card and and two, you know, binder clips and then like the tops of a um of like a soda bottle are the wheels that you poke a hole through. Um, and that and like so these hands-on activities that the kids are doing for each for each, you know, engineering or each principle, each science control are really where a lot of the learning is coming.

Speaker A: Again, we're attacking it here. When your science when your blog guy goes flying like, "Oh my gosh, did you see mine? Look how high mine went." Suddenly, they're stoked. They're engaging. They're showing each other versus like sitting in a classroom and a teacher just sage on the stage being like potential energy is mass times gravity times height. Please memorize this. Right? You start the other way around. You start with the wow and then and then we give you the how. But you got to start with the part that engages your heart first. So I have no idea what your original question was, but

Speaker B: >> No, no. Well, like to sort of to tie it back that you know asking about screens and sort of this

Speaker A: >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the point is it's not just like sit back and listen to me tell you potential energy is MGH. It's more like I tea up the problem. The anchoring phenomenon for that week and a half unit in potential energy is like wait why wait a second look go back play that back. Why did why did he go that the the kid go this high one time but then the next time he went way higher the heck's going on there? Right?

Speaker A: and then the kids scooby-Doo their way to the answer over a week and a half and we're never speed spoon feeding it each lesson they get a little bit closer to that answer or one of the units is like mag lev trains what the heck's going on there how does that work and then we show a picture of like a normal train a video and it's like wait what's different here how is this working and again they're they're playing with magnets they're doing all these things before they figure out the answer um

Speaker A: so like that is it's it's kind of turning science science education on its head and we didn't even invent that like open sed is a great example of a they kind of pioneered this in like 2019 like so they've done a great job um of like just showing how how much better you can teach science how much more can be remembered how much more exciting it could be if you do it this way versus just like I said sage on a stage here's the right answer memorize it

Speaker B: >> or even just person on screen who's telling you you're in a or just person it on screen.

Mark Rober: ... thing is it's very engaging and it's very like but also like uh almost half of the downloads so far of the pilot has been homeschool um uh folks who do homeschooling to make it engaging. So but even then they are seeing it on the screen but then they are taking it and they're doing stuff in real time. It's not just engaging on a screen.

Interviewer: Um I I think you can't ignore that. And I'm really good friends with Sal Khan, you know, who does Khan Academy. Um, obviously very connected to TED.

Mark Rober: Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah. And he's he's mentioned this like, you know, we'll probably partner up in some way and their science curriculum will kind of it will be because because what

Mark Rober: Yeah. Where where it's like there is an element that's a little bit hands-on like he's they're so brilliant. They've done so many things there and and and that's we are a yes and situation too. Like that's why we're telling everyone they can use our curriculum. If other people are doing curriculum, they should come to Crunch Labs. We'll show them what we're doing. We'll share notes. This is a rising tide, you know, raises all boat situation. And we want this to work for, you know, going back to that other question about like home, you know, what are the three things you change about education? We want this to work for home school, charter school, private school, title one school, like everything. This is a shotgun approach. And that's why we're making it free is because as soon as you charge a dollar, it creates this friction.

Mark Rober: So, we just want to create this goodness. And if people even there's people who charge for curriculum, uh, you know, and if they want to use our curriculum in theirs and charge for it, fine. You know, maybe they have to pay a license fee to donate to our nonprofit, which is crunch.org, But like everyone this is open source like anyone can use this. You know what I mean? Like we don't have our only goal is just reach an impact. There's no world where we make any money off this. We can't even we don't we're very strict about not even adver you know Crunch Labs itself we sell toys and do these things. We're very strict about not even putting those in this because we we would we would um put our nonprofit status at risk if this was somehow like a Trojan horse for selling something. So it's this is very very left-hand right hand and we just want this out in the world in every form just so everyone can have it and just reduce all the friction.

Interviewer: Yeah. Well, I mean we have a question from Shendy S about you know how far this reach goes. you know, wondering if there's interest and opportunity in making this accessible to people who who are outside of the US at some point. And you know,

Mark Rober: 100%. That is the ultimate goal. We we're very good at walking, you know, crawling before we walk, walking before we run. Um, a lot of our downloads, it's free. You can go to crosscrunchlabs.org and you can download all the curriculum. They're editable. So like even the curriculum, it's not like a PDF. We put it in Google Docs. So you could take that and you could copy and paste it, you could change it and make it whatever you want to make it exactly what you want. Um, and eventually we will, you know, once we nail it in the US and like have it figured out, then yeah, it is a it's a matter of of scaling that worldwide.

Mark Rober: And you know, I think there are science standards in the US. I think there are another a number of countries who are starting to adopt our science standards. Um, and that makes it easier. But, you know, you got to start somewhere. And because currently different countries do have like slightly different standards instead of trying to make something for everything, we'll make it for ours. We know we signed standards and we know 95% of that will be pretty applicable to others, but then, you know, country by country, we can slightly tweak it as needed.

Interviewer: Well, I think thinking about just sort of the future and where things head um not just for for Crunch Labs, but in for science education in general, especially online. um you know everyone of course like so many conversations all roads lead to artificial intelligence and how that factors in and what like for you when you think about the work you do if you're thinking you know 20 years ahead when we have and even today we have AI tutors and VR classrooms all of that like what is how does that change what a human like you or a teacher looks like in in that equation?

Mark Rober: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think as you get I mean, I I have this piece of glass and metal here that I can use my thumbs to touch in a very specific way and get an answer, a very good answer to any question on Earth. Any question I could potentially ask, even if it's very personal to me and my inputs in my world, like I can get a a very good answer. And so the real skill becomes asking the question, the right question or even asking a question period. In other words, curiosity. And I think as AI becomes more and more like things that inspire curiosity and and that reach here become more important than ever.

Mark Rober: Um, and I I see it I think AI could be a great tool. I mean there's one example which I really love. I was thinking about the other day where it's like even in a classroom if they have you know some some classrooms do have computers there there could be a situation where there's like an AI Mark Robber or AI BAM who's also one of our toy engineers at Crunch Labs that everyone loves where her or I it's like all right design your catapult you know for this potential potential like design it and then show it to AI Mark Grover you know and then I look at it and it's an AI version It's like, "Oo, that's really good, but what where's your energy source? You might want to relook at that." And then they go back and then they show it to me again. I'm like, "I love that. That's so good. Raise your hand. Tell your teacher you're ready."

Mark Rober: So, it's like I'm actually kind of like tutoring each each, you know, me or Bam or someone is like working with them. And then there's the teacher. But, I think you I think you'll always need a human element there. Even if it's like that and it's like a simulated human element, just like a robot coming in and teaching you something, I I think you're fighting against a couple million years of evolution there that like that's never really going to do it. So, it's like how do you combine how do you make the best out of it? I don't think it's the right answer to like issue everything AI and be like absolutely not. No, I don't think it's the right answer to just a robot should be doing all of these things. So, it's like what's the best of both worlds? How do you combine those in a way that's like um that maximizes the impact? And I I think there's going to be some great ideas there.

Mark Rober: Yeah, I think there's really power and you know, another good example is like what we're making with Class Crunch Labs is the fresh ingredients, you know, but you can you can make different meals with those fresh raw ingredients. So, a teacher could be like, "Look, I have 17 students. You know, half of them have this learning disability. Um, we've already covered this topic and this topic. They struggled with this. They nailed this. Take the cross ingredient, this next unit, and customize [snorts] it for me." Right? And it would be really good at moving all the ingredients. Okay. This is this is going to speak just to what you need. But you got to start with something good. the input has to be good to get a a quality output. And so I I I see like that's another really great use case where AI would be awesome with this.

Interviewer: It's it's more Yes. And it seems like just how can you do both? Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer: Well, Mark, we have some fun questions from from kids um who are either members or somehow became TED members themselves before before they um became adults. Um and so I'm going to share some of those with you. Um, usually people don't put their age when they share a question, but we have a lot of that. So, Winston K, who's eight, um, asked if you plan to visit space one day and how common will do you think space travel will be by 2040?

Mark Rober: Winston, what a great By when?

Interviewer: 2040.

Interviewer: What is soon?

Mark Rober: Yeah, 2040. I I think we'll definitely be on Mars. Um, I was just I don't know if I'm allowed how much I'm allowed to say, but I will say three days ago I was at SpaceX um talking about something potentially in the next year or two. Um, if everything goes right. So, space is definitely in my near future. Um,

Mark Rober: uh, also there's some man, there's so much cool stuff to say in the next year or two. I'm going to be going to some very very interesting places. Uh and and and for everyone else, space travel, I mean, you could get to Australia from Los Angeles in like 45 minutes if you travel to space. Um so I I think it will become much more common. I think I think for everyone I mean Winston it was Winston's eight years old, right?

Mark Rober: Winston for sure you will go to space. I'll say that much.

Interviewer: It's exciting. there. I feel like there's a stay. Keep watching Mark Rober for more information about like where what's on the horizon here.

Mark Rober: I I always get in trouble with my team because I'm not allow I I forget what I'm allowed to share and not allowed to share. But I think on the record for something I should kind of keep it more quiet, but there's some cool opportunities coming up that kind of revolve around getting people excited about science education by me going to from some pretty wild places.

Interviewer: All right. All right. We'll take it. Um, so Rory, who didn't share their age, but said that they are a kid, um, asked, "What is your favorite thing that you've ever made, and how do you think of what to make next?"

Mark Rober: How do you think what to next? I mean, favorite thing I've ever made. That's hard. We just did a robot goalie that that Ronaldo couldn't score on, like a a soccer goalie that moved back and forth at 40 miles an hour, and then we tracked the shot. Really, that was really fun. um the uh you know as far as what to make next. I think that's the beauty of being engineer is like it's not like oh the ideas come I mean almost never certainly when I was doing it on my own now we'll do it just because it's kind of fun with the team but like they almost never come from like I'm going to sit down today for an hour and I will brainstorm ideas never like I came up with a squirrel obstacle course when squirrels were stealing my bird seed and most people would just be like gosh darn it it steals are, you know, squirrels are stealing all my bird seed. But I'm I saw an opportunity and I was like, wait, what if I've really made them earn it with an eight part ninja warrior obstacle course? The birds could come and go as they please. The only way for a squirrel to do that is if he like solved all my things and I'm going to name them and, you know, I'm going to make it a thing. So, it's like uh or someone literally stole a package from my porch and I was very sad and I was sad for about a week and then I was like, "Wait a second. What if I devised a way to get back at these guys because I put her over on Mars." So, I should be able to come up with something that would be fun and exciting to get some revenge. So, so much so many of the ideas just come from conversations, everyday life. The key is you just always have to have that part of your brain engaged of like what would my solution be? So if you can start thinking like that, I think you'd be surprised how many opportunities are right in front of you at all times. You just got to get your head in that mind space. And I think that is some I do get that feedback sometimes from parents where it's like my kid watched one Mark Robber video and suddenly they're inventing ways to you know capture the rainwater on the roof and and and power a light bulb and to take the remote and turn it into like a you know a beam sensor when their kid their sister enters the room. I I love that, you know, I love being the catalyst for everyone thinking in their own domain how they can, you know, come up with their own clever ideas. They don't have to be that complicated, right? But like literally, if you're watching this right now and and you're a kid or if you're an adult, like, you know, a good thought starter is like, how do you turn off the light in your room while you're in bed? You know, that could look like a lot of different Maybe it's a string on a thing that comes through. Maybe it's like a a weighted thing. Maybe it's like a a target that you shoot your dart gun at that hits it. You know that that can be a very using a lot of just duct tape and ingenuity and junk around your house. Like what does that look like for you? And then once you do that, you'll realize like that was cool. I learned this and now I'm gonna figure out this new thing. How do I make my door so it automatically closes? You know, you can just it's it's a really fun way of seeing the world. So, it's just yeah, just sort of looking at the things around you and sort of having this eye for like how could you fix this, right? How could you make everything better? Um,

Interviewer: yeah. And it's like the most important phrase in science isn't like, oh, I figured it out. It's it's not Eureka. It's, and I forget who said this, someone famous said this who's like an inventor. It's like, oh, that's interesting. Like, huh, I didn't expect to see that. and very important inventions like radar and and microwaves came, you know, someone's chocolate bar melted in their pocket when they're standing next to a radar thing. And that's how we have a microwave in our kitchens. It's like, oh, I observed something. I was curious. I ran some tests. And you know, that same feedback loop of curiosity, investigation is literally how we have anything. the computers that we're talking on right now or this refrigerator behind me or just like anything that exists in the world came from someone observing and being curious.

Interviewer: Um well ton of folks Paul who is 13, Sophul who's 11, Luca who's seven, they all want to know what is the hardest or most interesting part of engineering.

Mark Rober: Um I think the hardest part is also the most fun part which is like it's it's never been done before. you're willing something into existence that's never existed. So that's the opportunity. The challenge is like it doesn't exist because it might be really hard to make it exist. And so it's just this constant feedback loop. The number one mistake people make when they're trying to build something is they want their final version to be their to be their to be the first version to be their last the final. And nothing that exists in the world, you know, these scissors right here went through so many prototypes to get to this final form. Did not start looking like this. And so, same with these these headphones, same with this literally this cap. Like the amount of revisions that this has gone through to get here is in the hundreds.

Mark Rober: And so that is the challenge is like just start somewhere. start with cardboard and duct tape as your first prototype and then get better and better and refine it until it is like something that works really well and each time you solve a few more problems and do another version, solve a few more problems. Um, so so that's the great opportunity and the great challenge is it's a it's a it's work and it's iterative, but that that's the fun part. It's a journey.

Interviewer: Um well, Mark, as we're winding down the conversation, um you know, we've talked so much about what you're creating with Class Crunch Labs and just what you've been doing just in general with creating science content for all these years when you're uh you know, 80 or an old man and you're looking back at all that you've done. How how do you think you'll know that CR excuse me, Class Crunch Labs worked? How will you know that what you've done was successful?

Mark Rober: Uh, I I'll never get to that point

Mark Rober: and and I'm okay with that. Like I love mountains to climb, you know? I I I don't tend to look back very often. It's more just like, oh, but what else could we do? So, it's

Mark: ...in like, oh, let me look back and be like, wow, look at all we've accomplished because there's so much more cool stuff to do. Like there's always more mountains and fun things. And like that is the joy, you know? It's the happiness of the pursuit, not the pursuit of happiness. And so I get the most joy and happiness when it's like I take something exactly what I just said, the iteration and like making a little bit better, making a little bit better. And so if someone else wants to look at it when I'm 80 and be like, "Oh, it was good." And therefore, you know, mission accomplished, great. But I won't. I'll be like, "Yeah, but you know, we haven't got it nailed in Korea yet. So let's do that." And that's not to say like I'm not happy or satisfied. Like I do take great satisfaction, but I take satisfaction in like the leveling up. And then hey, sure enough, what you find I think at some point is you have this body of work behind you that speaks for itself that hopefully has impact, but like I don't ever want anything named after me like a building. I don't believe in generational wealth. I don't like all that stuff is so like even the concept of legacy to me doesn't even make a ton of sense. I don't personally I just don't get it. That's not what I'm working for. And so um I appreciate the question. I think it's the right question to ask and it's an opportunity to say like it almost is confusing to me because that's just not how my brain works. It's like what else can we do? How else could we improve this?

Host: Yeah, it's the process. You're just constantly in there of the process. And then if you do that there things I think do tend to work well. You incrementally every year you're improving by 5%. That's like compounding results, you know.

Host: Yeah. Well, those feel like words to live by and maybe a good place to end. Thank you so much, Mark, for everything you've shared. I've learned a lot. I know everyone in the comments have been saying how much they've learned. So, thank you for sharing all this with us and taking some time today.

Mark: Love it. Thank you guys so much. Really appreciate the time.

Host: Thank you. And thank you to all of you for being here from all over the planet and participating in today's event, especially to our members. As a nonprofit organization, all of TED's work is made possible in part by you, the TED membership community. We look forward to having you join us at one of these events and many more throughout the year. Thank you. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, everyone.

Mark: Okay. Bye.