Staff at Quarry Hill Nature Center in Rochester seem to have solved a science problem: How do you give basic nature lessons and entertain people at the same time?
Take a weekly video program the nature center started at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to keep kids engaged. Add Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer. Throw in firefighters, waders, (literal) river dancing, and healthy doses of camp and self-esteem.
What you get is a couple of parody music videos — the kind that would make Bill Nye the Science Guy jealous — on basic outdoor education that are garnering attention on social media.
"It just is a creative way for us to make education fun and appeal to kids and even adult audiences," said Pam Meyer, executive director at Quarry Hill.
Meyer was the muse behind the nature center's first music video, "Ice Ice Safety." She and several naturalists, many of whom are also science educators with Rochester Public Schools, had started a video series for students called "This Week in the Wild" during the pandemic for distance learning lessons at districts across southeast Minnesota.
The weekly videos give biology lessons on topics from conifers and lichens to earthworms and great-horned owls. Yet no one thought to make the videos lyrically flow until Meyer came up with the idea last winter while driving back from a conference.
"This staff is very creative," she said. "So when the director comes back and says, 'Hey, what if we did Vanilla Ice, 'Ice Ice Safety, is that insane?' They were all on board. And the lyrics just started rolling.'"
Jenna Daire, a naturalist at Quarry Hill, said she immediately knew the idea could work. Staff had already shot and produced informational videos for more than a year, so it was easy for them to stop what they were doing, collaborate on lyrics and listen to the result.
