Bronx Students Learn To Rap The Periodic Table
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Students at one Bronx high school rap their way through science class, and say the material is more interesting than ever before. NY1's Education reporter Lindsey Christ filed the following report. At the Marie Curie School for Medicine, Nursing and Health Professions in Kingsbridge Heights, Bronx, science is a particularly important part of the curriculum. But students say high school science is not easy, so teachers have incorporated hip-hop into their presentation of the subject.
In the class of science teacher Christopher Emdin, students perform rap songs about the Periodic Table of Elements and the uses of different elements. Emdin thinks a lot more budding scientists should be using rap to understand chemistry.
"I would argue that the chief reason why kids don't connect to science is the way science has been presented, and the way science has been taught, and also perceptions of science," says Emdin. "So students see a scientist as this older white male who stays somewhere in a lab. They don't see science as a part of who they are."
Emdin shows teachers how to use hip-hop to teach science, to let students connect with the vocabulary and concepts. He says the students learn much better when the subject is tied to their culture and music, and his fellow teachers agree.
"Based on what they wrote in the rap, I can tell that they understand the concepts, that they aren't just throwing words together," says teacher Janine Tessarzik.
"Sometimes you'll just be sitting there and the teacher will be talking and kids lose it, but when you mix it with hip-hop, something they're interested in, they'll pay more attention to it," says student Amanda Dedes.
Emdin also hopes that if these students become health professionals, they will be able to speak the language of science in a way that their patients can relate to.
"In the Bronx in particular, the number of allied health professionals who are from the community, who know the language of the community, who know how people interact in the community - they aren't well represented," says Emdin. "So what we want is to get these folks to be those health care professionals in the future."
In the meantime, students say science class is a lot more fun.