By Isabella DeHayes

The smiles were warm, and the laughs were loud as Journi, the daughter of Maynard Okereke prepped her balloon rocket for a race across the stage. Okereke, the host of MayNERD’s Wild World of Science, a YouTube kids show co-founded by Kareem Edouard, PhD, assistant professor for the School of Education, is a viral sensation with his videos racking up millions of views on YouTube. On this day, Okereke was a guest on the Jennifer Hudson Show where he shared how hopes his show can make STEM learning more accessible to kids and break down stereotypes about what scientists are supposed to look like. The segment culminated with Okereke, Journi, and Hudson attaching decorated balloons to a string and shooting them across the stage when the air was released.

The work that led to this special TV moment started years ago in a lab at Drexel. Edouard, along with associate professor Christopher Wright, PhD, co-founded the Informal Learning Linking Engineering, Science and Technology (ILLEST) Lab in 2019. Kids from West Philadelphia and other neighborhoods near Drexel come to the lab to learn all sorts of topics in STEM. The lab is deliberately designed to allow kids to do whatever it is they are interested in. “These books I had as a kid called, 'Choose Your Own Adventure,' where in each page, you can choose and go to another page, it tells you to turn to page 66, then either it gives you another page or the adventure could end”, says Edouard. By putting the books into practice, he designed an open learning lab. When students come in, there are different stations: music production, modular manufacturing, sneaker manufacturing, power tools and sanders, and an animation lab. When young people walk into the lab, they choose their adventure, going to whichever station they’re feeling called to.

The ILLEST Lab, and inherently, MayNERD’s Wild World of Science, is intrinsically connected to the West Philadelphia community and the effort put in through civic engagement. Edouard emphasizes that a mantra in the School of Education is to look at how they are situated in the West Philadelphia community and understand that it is their duty to support the surrounding community and build them up, because of how welcoming they are. Maynard and Edouard look at civil engagement on the show as having all students represented.

The show is a combination of two things: pop culture and science. It is designed for kids, or as Edouard says, “the Saturday morning crowd.” with new episodes airing on Fridays. Edouard believes young people gravitate towards engagement in popular culture, but there is a balance to not allow for one to overshadow the other. “For example, we had a Black History feature on YouTube Kids, and what we wanted to do was something called Living Legends. And Living Legends was making sure that we gave the flowers to inventors and scientists, within the Black community that are still around to make sure that we celebrate them.”  They feature both established people in STEM spaces, while also making references to what kids like in pop culture.

The main idea of MayNERD’s Wild World of Science and the ILLEST Lab is to show that you can engage with STEAM with accessible, at-home materials. Even without high-tech materials or funding, it is still possible for young people to learn hands-on. In fact, by connecting to children's lived, cultural experiences, with everyday materials and physical engagement, there is more room for long-term recall, and goes farther than expensive materials.

“When Maynard's wonderful daughter comes onto the stage, you can see having us two Black men, supporting this young girl as she's entering into the spaces of engaging in, experimentation, those were the images that Jennifer Hudson and her show wanted to reify and to share, is that we matter.” Dr. Edouard says.

“These diverse representations are important and matter, for screen, and being able to provide levels of inspiration”

Being picked up by national news, a major talk show, is not only great exposure, but is also proof of something far greater: people want and more importantly, need this diverse representation in children’s media. Dr. Edouard says “media, parasocial relationships, really change how young people see themselves.”

Young Black and brown children are heavily underrepresented in children’s media, especially in STEAM, but the ILLEST Lab is centered specifically around how Black boys can be represented in media.

It should not be underestimated how much representation in children’s media can change a child's life. Episodes do not need to garner thousands and thousands of views to impact the life of a child, Dr. Edouard says that they often receive emails and letters from parents, showing their appreciation, that they’re just happy to see Black representation on screen. “Those are the videos that you put up, and you only get, you know, 2,000, 3,000, 5,000 views, and then you'll get a letter from a mom that says my son just watched your video back-to-back to back, and that video around sound really inspired him. So that then continues to fuel us as the producers and creators of the show to [continue] to make this content because you never know which video that's going to be the one that turns a young person's life into believing that only [they do] belong”, Dr. Edouard says.

As a child, Edouard drew his inspiration from Lavar Burton, where he learned about literacy through “Reading Rainbow.” There were decades between Lavar Burton and more Black male representation, but Edouard says that he sees Okereke in the same light, that he is a similar figure to young people as Lavar Burton was to him. There needs to be more opportunities for minorities to see themselves in STEM media, but Maynard, MayNERD’s Wild World of Science, and the ILLEST Lab is certainly a milestone in this space.