Review of Crash Course, by Hank Green and John Green
Reviewed by Marilyn Kupetz
Let’s suppose that you are a master naturalist charged with setting up classes in ecology, biology, evolution, and genetics. A clever person, you are opting for flipped classes so that participants can do the fact-based parts of the learning beforehand, while you use class time for hands-on collaboration.
Where do you go for high-quality content?
Crash Course at your service.
The Green brothers, both polymaths, have built a repository of user-friendly lessons on YouTube. Their hilarious 10- to 15-minute bursts are scientifically sound, relevant to what naturalists do, and lots easier to absorb than a long book or classroom lecture.
The Ecology playlist, for example, features Hank’s 12 lessons on the history of life, population ecology, human population growth, predators, succession, ecosystem ecology, hydrologic and carbon cycles, nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, pollution, conservation and restoration—solid stuff, but designed for easy digestion.
Biology offers 40 lessons. Among them, “That’s Why Carbon is a Tramp,” “Animal Development: We’re Just Tubes,” and “Fungi: Death Becomes Them” remind you that humor is an awesome learning lubricant when what needs to go down are bits of covalent bonds and mycorrhizae.
Are these snacks the same as a full-length college course? Of course not, but for concepts, conversation, and test prep, they are delicious and filling.
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