By: A.M., IANtB Science Editor
Fellow science communicator, Destin of Smarter Every Day and his family recently welcomed a fourth little sciencey baby into the world. There were so many sciencey, sciencey feels!!
A little brother becomes a big one.
“She has delivered all four of my babies.”
If you’re not familiar with Smarter Every Day, it’s a wonderful YouTube channel that teaches science and engineering concepts, using really cool demonstrations. So, naturally, as a YouTube science educator, Destin had to turn the birth into a science demonstration! Be sure to check out Destin’s special “birth day” t-shirt. I love it!!
Destin and his wife think regular maternity shoots are boring, so they had a friend do a “light painting” session that turned out really cool!
And whoever said that scientists are cold, unfeeling, soulless automatons was so, so wrong. This video was as moving as it was interesting. Destin also a raw and wonderful blog post on selfless fatherhood:
Authentic, selfless fatherhood doesn’t build you into a better person. It almost seems to cut you into one. At times the process isn’t pleasant. At times it feels as if you’re losing something that you had. It’s like a continual refinement of the soul that involves putting others before yourself. It involves conducting silly little mental exercises as a reminder to become humble.
– Destin Sandlin, “The Unspoken Selfish Fear of Fatherhood”
Destin waxes poetically again, in the video, as he introduces a segment on how the baby transitions from breathing “on the inside” to breathing “on the outside.”
“Childbirth changes hearts on many levels,” he says. “But it also changes your child’s heart.” We then see how he got the chance to listen to the sounds of his baby’s heart transitioning. It truly makes any experience richer, more spiritual even, to understand the science behind it!
Destin listens to the sounds of his baby’s heart transitioning to the outside world. So many feels!!
When you first see your baby, you have this uncontrollable urge to learn everything about how their bodies work.
– Destin, “WE HAD A BABY!! – Smarter Every Day 132”
If you want to learn more about how babies transition to breathing “on the outside,” check out Destin’s video from his last baby’s birth, this article I wrote about the topic, or for you meganerds out there, Khan Academy’s awesome video series on the topic.
As a science communicator, Smarter Every Day is an inspiration to me. And homeschoolers like Jamie rely on quality educational YouTube content to help supplement their homeschooling materials and enrich their children’s childhood. So if this video changed your heart, be sure to follow Smarter Every Day on YouTube or Facebook, and consider supporting the channel on Patreon, which is a wonderful company that helps support many other educational channels that teachers and parents use.
