(Clouds) Make it Rain
We posted before about the rhymes of Stanford University biologist Tom McFadden who creates very inspired raps about science to help his undergraduate students prepare for exams. A friend of mine showed me one of his latest creations, a remake of Fifty Cent and The Game’s song Hate It or Love It about metabolism.
What especially caught my eye, however, was another video in McFadden’s collection: “Clouds Make it Rain”. It’s a re-make of the Fat Joe song “Make it Rain”, but what made it special was that instead of the usual undergraduate-level “flow”, this was focused on and starred a classroom of fifth graders! According to the YouTube caption, McFadden worked with a classroom at East Palo Alto Chartered School with a program of field trips, lab experiments, and short presentations to study the water cycle and its impact on insect life.
East Palo Alto is notorious for being a difficult neighborhood, especially for children. This project’s use of hip hop and other integrated learning experiences strikes me as an ideal way to better connect science to the children’s lives and to make the learning more fun and memorable. Judging from the quality of the music video and the enthusiasm of the kids in it, I think this counts as a strong success.
Well done!