Ep. 6 - A Conversation with One of the World’s Most Influential Science Communicators: Hashem Al-Ghaili
This conversation with Hashem Al-Ghaili really covered a lot of ground. From content creation, social media management, navigating through university, overcoming diversity, learning on the fly, and sharing science information with 150+ million people per week. Yes, per week. Personally, I received insights and advice from Hashem as a teacher, content creator, and social media manager. And I also got to see how great content engages learners. Something I need to work on as an educator.
So, as an educator I am constantly trying to make content that sticks with my students. They are constantly consuming content on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and where ever else they spend their time with screens. And that content is sticking with them. It is engaging. They are remembering the jokes they hear, the dances they see, the information that is presented to them. And as an educator that can be both inspiring and a bit worrisome because we don’t always know what information they are consuming. But that is a story for another day. For now, let’s concentrate on the engagement side of things.
Hashem’s content is engaging. It is reaching so many people and getting so many impressions because it is engaging. Chances are you have probably come across his work either on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. On Facebook alone he has almost 33 million followers. This makes him one of the largest science pages in the world. So, as an educator I am looking at his work, how he makes the content, and what he is including to make it so engaging. And I want to copy that same method. And this is something all educators should want to do; to provide engaging content to their students. I hope to take a few tips and tricks from Hashem to improve my own content in my class. My students will thank me for it. And my goal isn’t to reach 200 million people per week with my work but I do want to improve the quality of content and engagement to the few students I do reach each week.
We chatted about so much more in this conversation. How he left Yemen to go study at multiple universities, casually learning English in months, teaching himself video editing skills, and why all of this matter to him so much. So, please tune in to find out how this scientist from Yemen is turning scientific discoveries into common knowledge around the globe as one of the world’s leading science communicators.
