Lyrical Science

Or Biolo-Glee, if you will.

What do you get if you dissect your favourite pop songs?

Sucking in multiple intelligences and spitting out inspiration, Lyrical Science is all about making music videos to help people learn tricky concepts in Science! Open to all students, all you need is a little creativity and a dash of humour.

Come and have a go!

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The Method:

1. Hear a song that makes you think – “Aha! I could improve it with science!” Generally, the link to a science topic is obvious, based on some key phrases of rhymes (I Will Divide)

2. Find the lyrics and paste them line-by-line into an Excel doc

3. List and understand all of the key terms and concepts that you will need to get into the song to make it scientifically sound. There’s no point doing one that is not accurate.

4. Check for misconceptions and address them now. You do not want to be promoting misunderstanding in your work, however well-intentioned.

5. Re-write the lyrics in the next column – try to keep the stanza (flow of syllables) and rhyming structure. This is where I think the real educational value lies – it is not as easy as it looks! Extra awesomeness comes from keeping some of the original lyrics so that they can be interpreted in a new way.

6. Test it out on your mates – does it make sense to them?

7. Record it and make a video. You’re a rock star!

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For some much better examples:

– Check out Tom McFadden’s  Human Bio Raps.

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Resources:

Copyright Friendly – for music samples, images and more

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All Lyrics and ideas so far are on this spreadsheet: Lyrical Science

Song Idea Topic Original Song Artist
I Will Divide Mitosis I Will Survive Gloria Gaynor
Don’t Divide Even Oogenesis Don’t Break Even The Script
Apoptise Cell death and tumour suppression Apologise One Republic
One Gene, One Protein Protein synthesis/ genetic code No Woman, No Cry Bob Marley
‘Karyotic ‘Somes Ribosomes and translation California Gurls Katy Perry
Good Riddance (to excess end products) End-product inhibition Good Riddance Green Day
Ace-Ace Inhibitors Enzyme inhibition Ice Ice Baby Vanilla Ice
Hormones Hormones I’m Yours Jason Mraz
Fix You Calvin Cycle Fix You Coldplay
Chlorophyll-a Photosynthesis Umbrella Rihanna
You’re Beautiful Mate Selection You’re Beautiful James Blunt
Girls and Boys Mate Selection Girls and Boys Good Charlotte
Gone/Encore Extinction & Endangered Species Numb/Encore JayZ-LP
Lose your Lunch Immune System Lose Yourself Eminem

Any more ideas? Post them in the comments below!

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For some more reading on how making use of  Musical Intelligence can aid in learning across the curriculum:

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Here are some nice examples from Ross Durand

Natural Selection Song:

Photosynthesis Song:

And MrT absolutely loves this one:

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