In our Show & Tell ( STEM ) presentations ( K-12 ) in which Prof. Dick Stein ( UMASS-Amherst ) would explain the academic principles, and I would reinforce these concepts by "telling the story" behind the history. This was before YouTube and Teleconferencing.
Still today everyone wants to hear a "story" or a joke, or gossip, and retains a majority of the details, many years into future,....even when you heard it once.
Prof. Stein would start off by discussing density, specific gravity, and bouyancy, and the students would start to fidget. I would interrupt by asking "Anyone want to hear a story", and that got the classrooms attention. They they would ask "What is the story about"?
About a wet naked guy running down the street carrying a gold crown in his hand, and yelling Eureka"( I have found it ).
That got everyone's attention.
So I told them the story about Archemedes in ancient Greece "when the king asked him to determine whether to crown was pure gold or if it was a gold plated lead forgery.
after 15 years I met one of those students at the mall, and he remember everything,...including Prof. Stein's presentations.
Keep up the good work,
Ted.
