FunScienceDemos—more than 200 free, open-sourced educational videos for school children produced by faculty and students from the College of Science and Technology—has reached more than 100,000 YouTube subscribers.

"If our recent history has taught us anything, it is that science literacy, worldwide, should be a priority," says Assistant Professor George Mehler, who leads Temple's STEM-oriented FunScienceNetwork project. "Each day, FunScienceDemos is doing just that, delivering quality science lessons into virtually every country of the world.

Reaching more than 100,000 subscribers is a big milestone in the world of YouTube. In the coming months the channel will be vetted by YouTube and then have access to their studios in New York City and receive advice and support from the professional YouTube team.

FunScience team member Jared Hottenstein helped create FunScience Scavenger Hunts, which allowed the channel to post new content every day during the final 3 months of the school year. Naomi Lawson, a chemistry with teaching major, recorded a video on the coronavirus and COVID-19 literally hours before Temple University closed Main Campus. Those efforts helped membership soar. In fact, during the same three-month period, close to 1,000,000 unique users visited the channel to use the science videos.

"When we started this project, we could not have imagined what we would achieve," says Mehler, who was the science education coordinator in the Central Bucks School District in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, for 25 years. "Thank you to everyone at the College of Science and Technology who is supporting our success and advocacy of science education."

FunScience Network is comprised of multiple components, including:

• FunScienceDemos: Flagship YouTube channel with more 200 science lessons all aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.
• FunScienceSupport: Website designed specifically for K-8 teachers with Science readings, writing prompts, math activities, simulations and more.
• FunScienceToons: An ambitious project, when finished this YouTube channel will feature 85 science animations. Watch a finished episode here.
• FunScienceProductions: 28-minute episodes around a science theme shown on Temple TV, local Philadelphia cable and, this fall, in the Fairfax County School District of Virginia, one of the largest school districts on the East Coast.
• FunScienceTools: Coming in Summer 2021, this K-16 curated resource for science education will feature the best science education developers from around the world, in a very easily accessible design for all teachers.