Science explainer videos in Bangla take flight

On a cream-white table, Rauful placed the linear light source. The source emits three rays of red light. To demonstrate basic light refraction, he brought a triangular prism, convex lenses and concave lenses. 

In the next two minutes, he showed how the light rays changed their direction through the lenses and prism, following the basic light refraction theories. In another video, scientist Rauful brings out a yellow pH scale to measure the pH of a glass of orange juice. 

The most popular video on his channel is about the law of conservation of energy, which garnered 2.5 million views on Facebook Shorts in just two weeks. 81,000 people liked that video. 

Photo: Courtesy

In the last month, Rauful has posted 17 videos, which garnered more than 2.5 million views on his YouTube channel called Rauful Alam. The channel has more than 17,000 subscribers. His Facebook page has 51,000 likes and 129,000 followers. And Rauful achieved all this in one month. 

"It has just been one month since I started making the content in Bangla. It feels great that I am getting so many responses from people," said Rauful Alam, principal Scientist at PTC Therapeutics, Inc. in New Jersey, where he develops new drugs for diseases. He is also the author of three Bangla books on the education system of Bangladesh. 

The comment section of the videos is full of positivity. Under the light refraction video, a couple of people inquired about the tools. Some wished they had such visual demonstrations while growing up. But it's not always positive feedback, "the negative comments, which sometimes appear, are demotivating," Rauful added. 

He bought the optical experiment set from Amazon. Rauful studied chemistry and is a scientist now, so collecting metal samples or potassium permanganate is not tough for him. What seems intriguing is the fact that he decided to make such explanatory videos on scientific theories and experiments in Bangla. 

Biggan PiC is another platform that makes explanatory science videos, narrated in Bangla. Md Jomman Bhuiyan, a physics graduate from Jagannath University, started this channel in September 2020, when he lost his tuition (private students) because of the pandemic.

In just a year, his channel got a lakh subscribers. With 143 videos, the channel now has more than 70 million views and almost 7 lakh subscribers. While Rauful demonstrates in his videos using tools and materials, Jomman uses stock footage to explain the theories on cosmology and other scientific theories. 

But why is explainer video content getting popular in the country? 

'Educational institutions in Bangladesh do not have enough lab classes'

Last June, Rauful Alam visited Bangladesh from New Jersey and went to his school in Comilla. This is where he grew up and finished his secondary studies. 

Every year Bangladesh gets foreign aid from development organisations, especially in education and other development sectors. The organisations send educational equipment, books, and donations, according to Rauful.  

On his visit,  Rauful met the headmaster of his school and wished to see the lab class and the equipment. "As I went into the headmaster's room, I saw the equipment all nicely packed and kept inside the cupboard. Why?  Because nobody there knows how to operate those," he said. 

Rauful remembered how from a tin-shed shabby structure the school has been transformed into a three-storey concrete building over the years. However, it still lacks a proper lab room and skilled operators to demonstrate the experiments. 

After his higher secondary studies at the Cumilla Victoria College and masters in chemistry from the University of Chittagong, Rauful Alam went to Sweden to pursue his PhD in organic chemistry in 2009. 

"It was in Sweden where for the first time I realised that learning can be fun. I saw my contemporaries attending classes, studying something but not partaking in the exams. It didn't make any sense. But later I realised, they were studying because they liked it, not because they needed to get a job," Rauful said.

Photo: Courtesy

"This is where I want to make a change. I want to spread the idea that studying science and mathematics can be fun. And everybody can learn these things, you do not have to be a science student," he said. 

Rauful's father wanted him to join the government as an officer, "for a middle-class father of Bangladesh, that is the highest form of recognition he wishes for his son. But now that he visits me in the States and mentions that his son is a scientist here, he feels good. The immigration officers do not ask him further questions," Rauful wrote in one of his social media posts. 

After his PhD and postdoc in 2017, Rauful joined the pharmaceutical company PTC Therapeutics, where he works on new drug discovery. 

"I love doing research, studying and inventing new medicines. I know how important it is to have researchers for a country. Take Singapore. A country of just 60 lakh people, the University of Singapore has more than 3,000 researchers. No wonder the country stands high in the world innovation index. We need researchers in Bangladesh," he said. 

That is why Rauful now wants to work for the development of STEM education in Bangladesh. He is planning to start a programme where university students who have a better understanding of scientific theories and access to scientific tools will visit the village schools and teach the students there for a day. 

"It has just been a month since I started making the videos. Although it takes time and effort to plan, prepare and edit the content, I want to continue making the videos in Bangla," he said. 

Explainer videos are effective because they combine audio and visual 

In 2020, when everything closed during the pandemic, Md Jomman lost all his tuition gigs, which was his major earning source. A post-graduate in Physics, Jomman didn't know what else to do. 

"Based on feedback from my students and their parents, I knew I had the knack of explaining complex scientific theories in easily comprehensible language. I decided to do something with that skill," he said.  

So one September morning, he decided to make an explanatory video on cosmology for his channel BigganPiC. For footage, he collected stock footage from relevant websites. And for the research and scripting, it took him two more weeks to finish. 

"For the first seven or eight months, I didn't get many views or responses. But after a year, suddenly the content got so much reach that I had a lakh subscribers," Jomman said.

From September 2020 till date, he has uploaded 143 videos on the channel and earned Tk23 lakh from YouTube. "When I started making the videos, I observed there was no content in Bangla. Even today, when I study and research for videos, I have to go through endless numbers of English videos and papers. I think this is one of the main reasons why this type of content is gaining so much popularity," Jomman said. 

Although Jomman likes to make explanatory videos, especially about mathematics, he laughed, "I like to explain things. But my audience does not like mathematics I guess."

Another reason for his success he feels is that, instead of just text or audio, these explainer videos use audio and visual messages to tell the story, which significantly increases retention.

In his book '60 Seconds: How to Tell Your Company's Story & the Brain Science That Makes It Stick,' Andrew Angus cites a principle called dual-coding that shows that when auditory senses alone are stimulated, people retain about 10% of what they're told, but when both visual and auditory senses are stimulated, that number goes up to 68%.

"My father wanted for me to do a government job, like any other middle-class father. But now that he sees me earning, he doesn't press me anymore. I want to pursue higher studies abroad. But for now, this is what I want to continue doing," Jomman said.