Students rapping about cataracts, the black plague and the solar system is all in a day's work in a science class taught by Tom McFadden, the self-proclaimed 'science rapper.'
McFadden, a Stanford grad and Fulbright Scholar, used the hip hop he's long loved to teach students complicated subjects - creating rap videos with a scientific spin.
Based in San Francisco, McFadden wrote grants and created a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to produce five professional music videos made by middle schoolers in the Bay Area last year. The videos covered debates in science history such as 'Is Pluto a Planet?' and the 'Black Plague vs. Yellow Fever.'
Inspired by Bill Nye the Science Guy, the first-year teacher told ABC News it felt natural and obvious to put education to tune.
'Students are having fun, they're learning, they're proud of what they've done,' McFadden said. 'So it's hard to argue with that.'
'As much as the lyrics and the rhymes are important for memorizing the information, the association with other songs and popular melodies has a big impact as well,' he said.
The rap about ' Rosalind Franklin vs. Watson & Crick, ' written and performed by seventh graders from KIPP Bridge Charter in Oakland, Calif., has been viewed online nearly 150,000 times.
Viewers can follow along with the lyrics on the screen to beats and audio mixing off of Kanye West's 'Clique' and Gwen Stefani's 'Hollaback Girl.'
'We know that the students like technology, they like music, right? So you put those both together and the students are learning,' said Lolita Jackson, principal of KIPP Bridge.
'There's such a dramatic difference when you can create something like this, that's really professional, that makes an impact,' McFadden said. 'That students get to see themselves as part of the fabric of culture and of the Internet and of education and creators. That has a big impact on anybody, especially students.'
Entities 0 Name: McFadden Count: 4 1 Name: Watson & Crick Count: 1 2 Name: Kanye West Count: 1 3 Name: Stanford Count: 1 4 Name: Bill Nye Count: 1 5 Name: Bay Area Count: 1 6 Name: Lolita Jackson Count: 1 7 Name: Pluto Count: 1 8 Name: Calif. Count: 1 9 Name: Gwen Stefani Count: 1 10 Name: San Francisco Count: 1 11 Name: Tom McFadden Count: 1 12 Name: Oakland Count: 1 13 Name: Rosalind Franklin Count: 1 14 Name: ABC News Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1lCmMbR Title: Who Gets to Graduate? Description: For as long as she could remember, Vanessa Brewer had her mind set on going to college. The image of herself as a college student appealed to her - independent, intelligent, a young woman full of potential - but it was more than that; it was a chance to rewrite the ending to a family story that went off track 18 years earlier, when Vanessa's mother, then a high-achieving high-school senior in a small town in Arkansas, became pregnant with Vanessa.
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