IMPACT 0292: CREATING ‘EDU-TAINING’ SCIENCE AND NATURE VIDEOS

Man Jing Kong, 27, better known as Biogirl MJ, is the co-founder of Just Keep Thinking, a science channel on YouTube where they hope to share Science and nature knowledge in a light-hearted, bite-sized manner so that everyone can enjoy learning. They believe that social media can be used to propagate the power of knowledge, and with that they can change the hearts and minds of society, little by little.

My name is Man Jing. I am 27 this year and I am the co-founder of the science and nature channel “Just Keep Thinking”. Our goal is to share knowledge in a bite-sized and light-hearted manner on social media. We want to communicate knowledge in a way that people can still learn while being entertained at the same time. As our audience grows, we also hope to change hearts and minds with regards to important issues in our society.

I’ve always had a passion for science ever since I was a little girl. To me, science is everywhere and it explains how everything works. It is fascinating, enlightening and ever-changing. In my university years, I immersed myself in all things nature and worked for various nature/wildlife organisations. I then became a science teacher. I constantly find myself veering towards education and outreach as I enjoy sharing my knowledge with people – seeing their eyes light up as they hear my stories makes me truly happy.

The idea for our science and nature channel was sparked when my co-founder and I were on a holiday in the Philippines. We visited a coral rubble shore and I was educating him on the relevant science facts behind what we were observing. My co-founder, who’s a videographer, felt that there was potential in my presentation, as the social media scene in Singapore lacked an educational platform that was entertaining at the same time. Therefore, he convinced me to start a channel with him. As a science communicator, I also wanted to reach out to a wider range of mainstream audience, including people who may not necessarily be interested in science and/or nature.

I remembered being very nervous when we released our first ever video on our channel. I always thought: would people dislike me? Did I talk too much? Was I too annoying? Much to my surprise, the video was rather well-received, and this motivated us to produce even more of such “edu-taining” videos and infographics. Every single message from someone that shares how much they have learnt and enjoyed our content always brings a smile to my face and motivates me to work even harder. I was very touched that people genuinely enjoyed and accepted this goofy side of me.