Featuring Emily Calandrelli

a former m I two grad. She's an author. She does everything we talked about a lot in this episode, and I hope you guys enjoyed before this episode starts. As always, don't forget to subscribe, leave a comment. And if you haven't showed this episode with Somebody Loves Personal Emily, I am so excited you are on my show. This is so exciting. I'm so excited. This is like I Heart Radio. Are you kidding me? This is awesome? It doesn't feel real, sill and we're already in the second season.

Oh my gosh, there's a lot to talk about. For those who don't know you are a Emmy nominated a science host. I'm going to say m I t grad and you have a new Netflix show called Emily's Wonder Lab, which is so exciting and how awesome is it that, like you're on Netflix, Like literally dream come true? Hands down. I'm a senior in high school and I've been really

into science, particularly this year for the first time. UM, And I know you talk a lot about STEM literacy, So for those who don't know what it is, can you explain it? And then can you tell me how I can become more STEM literate on a day to day basis? Yeah, I mean when I see stem literacy, I really just mean people being more comfortable learning about science,

because science is so it seems so intimidating. Like I know, when I was in high school, I thought science was like just for the quote unquote smart people, and I did not consider myself one of the smart people, and so I was like, oh, science is way too intimidating for me. Um. But I have since learned that science is fascinating and fun to learn about and it's absolutely everywhere, and so for me, I just want to make science more accessible for everyone. You don't have to be majoring

in science to enjoy science. You don't have to have like a PhD to learn this stuff. I just want to try to make it more fun and accessible for everyone, and that's something we have in common. Actually, I'm really passionate about the education system, and I think there are so many flaws with it, especially the way we approach them.

So what is one of the things that you think that should change across all schools that would make them more interesting and an approach where people would be excited to learn about And it's like, oh, science class, Yes, I think that we should be using more than just textbooks. Like most of my schooling was all just like memorize everything in this textbook, and that's what sciences. I hate textbooks so much, like we all learned so differently, and for me, textbooks were just not the way that I

enjoyed learning. I like to learn learning from videos or from experiments, things that I could get my hands dirty with. That type of stuff is way more interactive and fun. I think teachers should be using more YouTube videos and their classrooms. These people on YouTube who are just so creative and smart and funny and goofy, and they incorporate science and really unique ways that I've never seen before.

We just need to be allowing students who learned differently to be able to discover all of these different ways that science can be taught. And science is really all around us. I actually took physics this summer, so fascinating. I was I love to paint, so I was gonna pick out paints for me and my brother, and then I thought, wait, I could save money by just using the primary colors because that's how light reflects. And I had a whole lesson on it and it just worked

out perfect. That's Jesus. I mean, that's just like understanding how the things that we experience every day, how they work. Like the fact that white light contains all of the colors that when I first learned that, that blew my mind. That is such a You would think that all of the light colors mixed together would look like black light, but that's just that it creates white. That so cool,

I know. And I also I saw your d I y video on how to make ice cream, and I remember doing it at camp when I was like eight years old, and it just it did not turn out right. I think we missed the salt, which was actually the main component to it. But now I really want to

try it. Oh, it's so easy. That's one of my favorite ones to do because I think it's so fascinating that when you add salt to ice that you can actually lower the temperature of ice, like you can get it down to seven degrees fahrenheit, just something really really really cold. And that's the way that you can make ice cream in five minutes. You just super cool it. We learned something new every day. That's so fascinating about it.

So what is your favorite d I Y project not just you've done, but seemed done that you're like, oh my god, it was just like a blow your mind

type moment. Oh yeah, I mean one that I like doing all the time is the egg and a bottle experiment where you get a bottle it's like a milk jug, and then you light a piece of newspaper on fire and so it involves fire, which is always and kind of scary, and you throw that flaming newspaper in the bottle and then you put a boiled egg on top of the glass bottle and when that happens, basically you're forcing a lot of the air out of the bottle.

And then once the fire goes out that air that's left inside condenses and you're creating kind of like a vacuum, and that egg gets pushed in by the atmospheric pressure. And so it's just a way to suck an egg into a bottle. And it looks like magic, but it's science. It's so cool. That's crazy. And I think science is so important, especially STEM, and unfortunately STEM is just such

especially women in STEM. It's so underrepresented. And my cousin actually works at SpaceX UM and he is one of the engineers for the rocket chips and he has always told me the importance of having women in STEM. And so I actually asked him to ask a question for something because I thought it might put a fun spin on it, and he said, let me find it here.

For many who are unaware of the challenges faced by women and STEM and in the workplace in general, what are some of the best ways they can raise awareness for and champion gender equality in an appropriate professional way. Yes, oh my gosh, that's such a cool question. And also the fact that he works at SpaceX that's like the coolest company ever. So he's the coolest. I should I

should connect you guys. He's that's pretty amazing. I mean Honestly, I think one of the things that I see the most that uh, maybe men in the world of engineering or stem um fail to do is when you do these projects when you're in college. Oftentimes one part of the project is you have to go and do outreach in the community and you have to try to inspire

the next generation of scientists and engineers. And what I often see is those people going to the places that they experienced when they were a kid, like Boy Scouts, which is great. We should absolutely be going to the Boy Scouts to encourage them to become scientists and engineers. But if you're only going to the boy Scouts and you're not going to the Girl Scouts, who do you think the next generation of scientists and engineers are going

to be? Right? So, I think that if we can just be a bit more thoughtful and who we recruit, and also trying to find more representation in these fields, Like obviously a girl going to talk to the Girl Scouts is probably going to be more powerful. That doesn't mean guys shouldn't do that, they should absolutely do that, but um, trying to find representation in these fields is really important because there's just something about seeing someone that

looks like you talking about science and technology. That makes that that whole field feel so much more relatable exactly, And this is a loaded question, but what is your favorite thing about science? I mean, I think my favorite thing about science is like it allows you to peek behind the curtain of nature. Science is the language of nature, and just being able to understand how certain things work is fun. Like a while back, there were there were

some a few viral things like the is this dress? Uh? What was it? Like? Blue? Or gold? Or gold? Or I saw blue and black? What did you see? I would see it one way and then I would like go like do something and come back to my computer, and then I would see it being blue and black like I would why is that? So it's the way that our brain processes images and the color in those images.

It's something called color constancy. And so what our brain is trying to do when we see that picture is we're trying to figure out what the lighting scenario is. And so basically it's just what our brain is doing backflips, trying to figure out what type of picture we're looking at. You've also done some other work with Netflix. You have worked with the Iconic Bill and I design. I feel like it would be so awful if I didn't mention,

if we didn't talk about it. What was that experience like with working with such an icon and what was your favorite favorite experiment you did with that show? Is a corresponse. Oh my gosh. So Bill is someone that, obviously, like many other people I grew up with in my classroom, my teacher would roll in a TV and we would play these like videos of Bill and I the science guy and all of my classroom. So this was someone

I knew about my entire life. And then here I am a full grown adult and now Bill and I gets to be my boss. Like I that's the coolest thing ever. That was such a dream come true for me. Um and he was exactly as I imagined, like perfectly nerdy and entertaining and just like very very smart and

passionate about science. We would be in um writing rooms for the Netflix show and they'd be brainstorming what they wanted to include in an episode, and then Bill would have like an experiment in his pocket and he would be like, Oh, I have something related to what we're

talking about. Check out this experiment, and he would just do an experiment for everybody in the room, and then our executive producer would have to be like, all right, Bill, we have to move on, like we can't keep doing science. And it was like only the cameras were right now that that would have been good. Behind the scene, it really would and it was just like exactly what you

would expect. And I think my favorite experience with that is that because it was an international show, because of course it's on Netflix, I got to travel to some very cool places. So I did a lot of my correspondent gigs in India, and so I flew to India to talk about how they solved um the polio crisis with vaccines, and how a company there where most people were like the age of seven, we're working to become

the first private company to land on the moon. Um. And just being able to go to India and see all of that science there was really really cool. That's crazy, And I think also science is so important now more than ever, and with what's going on in the world, it like very much determines what's going to happen in our future. I saw you do a Ted talk Um when you talked a lot about climate change, and you

talked about the importance of listening with it. So, for someone who not necessarily doesn't believe it, but it's skeptical, what do you think or just wants to talk to someone, what is the right to approach a conversation in a respectful way instead of just being like, no, you're wrong. This is such a good question. I love you for asking this because I think this is one of the things that a lot of people who are passionate about trying to solve this problem of climate change get wrong.

Is that we see people who don't agree with the science of climate change, and we just automatically say you're dumb or you're stupid or whatever. And that's just not a good way to change somebody's mind. Um. I personally, I'm from West Virginia, and so being from coal country, there's a lot of people that I love and I respect who don't accept the science of climate change. And so I've had to go through my life talking to people that I love and admire and figure out where

that comes from. So I think the first thing to do is to listen, where is that science denial coming from. Is it because they actually don't agree with the science, It's not usually that. Sometimes it's like in coal country US, fighting climate change means that we, uh, we're like passing these environmental policies and they don't see those environmentally friendly

policies to be very friendly to them. But like we have to first understand where they're coming from, be empathetic to that, and then go from there, because we're not going to get anywhere if we're just like calling people ignorant. So for those who don't know, can you explain climate change? Yeah? I mean climate change is just this greenhouse effect that we see everywhere, not just our planet. Like the idea of the greenhouse effect or climate change is not unique

to Earth. We are just making it worse with a lot of the greenhouse gases that we are emitting with cars and planes and fossil fuels and all of this stuff that's adding these gases to the atmosphere where the Sun brings us energy. We love the sun. The only reason we have life here is because of the Sun, and a lot of that energy comes to the Earth, warms up the Earth and bounces right back out of

the Earth and goes into space. Some of that energy is kept here, not all of it bounces out some of that energy is kept here by the blanket of our atmosphere, that blanket that's created by greenhouse gases, or we're creating a bigger blanket that's holding more of that energy in. It's a very fragile system, right, because our atmosphere is so thin. You don't realize how thin our atmosphere is until you go into space. I mean, it

looks paper thin if you go into space. If you look at images of our Earth from space, it's just this like light blue line. And from here on Earth, when you look up at the sky, it looks so big. You couldn't imagine that humans would be able to change our atmosphere all that much. But when you see it from space, you're like, oh, our Earth looks very very fragile. That's crazy. Yeah, So how do we make our environment and the earth not political? Oh gosh, that's that is

the million dollar question. It's so crazy that it's become so politicized. It's so politicize. But like, I think the challenges that science will always be a little bit political, right because with climate change, if you want to fight it, what you're really doing is you're going against big fossil fuel companies and big fossil fuel companies pay for campaigns, uh, for certain types of politicians, right, And so when you go against those fossil fuel companies, what you're really doing

is you're going against certain types of politicians. And so one good thing would be to get the money out of politics and maybe not allow big fossil fuel companies to give money to politicians. That would certainly help um. But no, I don't know how you solve that problem. I think that you try to get people to care about science and not the ideology behind it. We have to take a quick break, but when we come back, I want to hear about the craziest experiment you've ever

done anywhere in the world. We'll be right back and we're back. So you've traveled the world, what's the cree the experiment you've ever done? And you're like, how is this my life? Oh my gosh. So for my I have another show on Fox on Saturday mornings called Exploration Outer Space, And for that show, I mostly just cover like all things related to space. And last year I got to go to Russia to train like a cosmonaut,

which is Russia's version of astronaut. I got to train like a cosmonaut at the UH it's like their version of NASA, the Eurygagaron Cosmonaut Training Center. Eury Gagarin is the first human to ever go into space, and he

was Russian. And so anyways, I go to the Euriga Garon Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, and I get to ride in something called a human centrifuge, which is essentially like an amusement park ride that spends really really really really fast so that you get to experience the g forces of a launch, the gravitational forces of

a launch. And so I got in this thing. It's fun, really really really really fast, and I experience, Um, I think I got up to four G. I think for like basically it felt like four of me times you're gravitational way, that's exactly right. Yeah, it was like four of me sitting on top of my chest is what it felt like. It was crazy. It was so much It was so so much fun, and I was like, this is what it feels like to launch in the space. And I am currently feeling this. This is so cool

because I've always been so curious about that. What do you ever want to go to space? So I would. I think that I would want the ride to space to be super super safe. I don't know that I'm willing to risk my life to go into space. But like I've gone skydiving, Like if it were as safe as skydiving, I would do it. Okay, I would absolutely skydiving compared is skydiving just like nothing's like is that like going on a walk compared to like everything you've done?

Would you say no? No? Skydiving was terrifying, I thought, I thought sky having Oh yeah, I did not enjoy skydiving. I don't want to go again. Where did you? Oh gosh, I've gotten Um. I went once in Ohio and then I want I went once like in San Jose. Have you ever done the I Fly? Yeah, I've done that. Um was it realistic? Apparently? The I Fly? They say when you're doing it feels like when you're jumping out of a plane, You're like when you're sky diving. It

definitely feels very similar. And I think that's probably why I didn't like it. Was because you have that all that air rushing in your face, and it for me it was hard to breathe, Like I don't Yeah, I don't enjoy that. Like, what if you get a nosebleed? That was my main concern, would just go everywhere? What

would the gravity like, how would gravity affect that? I think, yeah, that would be interesting because it's like a one On one hand, the gravity is trying to pull your nosebleed down, but on the other hand, you have this wind coming at your face throwing it up. I think that. I think that's your next that's my next experiment. What would you do if you had a nose bleed and you're free falling towards the ground. I I would be too scared to do it, but I'm all for I'll copyright, Yeah,

I'll I'll tag you. So then the other thing you did that I want to try. The vomit. Oh my gosh, the best thing in my life. Please explain it to the people who aren't aware. And how do I get on a vomit? Absolutely? Okay? So the vomit comment is a plane that flies like an eight thousand foot roller coaster in the sky. It just goes up and down and up and down and up and down, and you

do that for like an hour and a half. And it does that because if you've ever ridden a roller coaster and when you go over a hump and the roller coaster, or if you're in a car and you go over a bump and your butt lifts off your seat and you get some air time for like a second. It's like that, but for about twenty five seconds. So you get airtime for twenty five seconds, but to you, you just feel like you're flying you like like you don't feel like you have any gravity acting upon you

at all, like you're just free floating. And then of course you have to like a roller coaster, it goes down and you have to go back up, and you feel like really really heavy for seconds, so you feel waitless and heavy and weightless. And how do you mean by heavy? Like, what do you mean by like twice your weight? You feel twice your weight. It's like you get to gees. So I'm trying to imagine that it's but I feel like I have to experience it to

really understand. It would be like if you were sitting on top of you, Like if you were laying down on the ground and another version of you laid right on top of you. It just feels like slightly uncomfortable, not that bad, but just slightly uncomfortable. I know a lot of people have gotten sick doing it. Did you get sick? I did? Yeah. For the my first flight, I helped give the vomit comment its name, um, which

is not the worth of it? Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was so worth it, because they tell you when you do this, your body has never experienced this. Take it slow. But of course when I start to feel this, I'm doing backflips. My head is on the ceiling, my feet aren't like you have kids like so much fun. And so yeah, I I threw up. And you have to be very careful when you do that because when you're weightless and you barf, where does that throw up go?

It goes, It goes everywhere. So they event that and when you get on the plane, you bring the most important tool that you will bring on that plane, and it is a barf bag. The most important thing that you will bring on that plane is a barf bag, so that when you throw up, you can put it somewhere.

And then so how do I go on this? So one the way that I did it, and this is the way that I would recommend, is that if you study science and engineering, you can join a microgravity research team in college, and you can design an experiment with your friends and apply to NASA to fly on the vomit commet and if you get accepted, you can fly on it for free, like for free. If you don't want to do that, you can pay to fly on it.

And I think right now, it's like six thousand dollars of seats, So wow, little little pricey, that's just like just a little bit does we all have in our wat always? So another I want to go back to talking about women in STEM because as I know, that's something you're really passionate about and something I'm really passionate about.

And I was wondering what is the most impactful way to encourage and normalize women something because I feel like a lot of the time it's considered like you're not as strong as you do, like we're not as smart. So how do you think we can normalize that? Yeah, And I think one of the things that at least I personally try to do is I showcase the creative side of science and also like the philanthropic side, the side where you can actually make the world a better place.

Studies have shown that for little girls and minorities as well. If you talk about how science can allow you to help the world and make it a better place, that speaks louder to younger girls and minorities. And so that's something that I always try to do, is be like, hey, I love being creative, I love writing, I love filming,

I love doing all of these creative things. Art was one of my favorite classes in high school and everything, and so I showcase the fact that I can combine both of those things and create something really unique in this world of stem um. Also, I think that especially in the world of space, like space exploration and space based technologies help make the world so much better um by looking at how our planet is changing. We've talked

to a lot about climate change. The reason why we know our climate is changing is because we have satellites looking back down on our Earth seeing how it changes every single day, and when we have forest fires or when we have earthquakes or hurricanes like, we can see where all of that movement is going, and so we can bring help to the right people at the right time.

Crazy science, man, It's an actual thing, that's right. So for those who say we actually had a debate on this in history class list year, we were doing um about, you know, the first man who lent on the Moon, whether it's worth it because of the money that it costs. So for people that say, why I spend so much money going to space when we have enough problems down

here on Earth, what is your response? I would say that all of the money that we're spending up in space is to benefit the people down here on Earth.

And usually when people are complaining about that, they're only talking about human space exploration, like bringing a human to the Moon, And that portion of NASA's budget is so small compared to all the other stuff they do, which is like figuring out how our planet works, looking at climate change, making airplanes safer and cleaner and less noisy, all of the stuff is just takes up way more

of NASA's budget than the human side of it. But the human side of it I think is important too, because that's what makes us human, is that we want to be the ones to look over that mountain, to cross that sea, to see over that hill top. We want to be the ones to explore that is inherently human. Do you think there's gonna be a time where we colonize on another planet. I do think that eventually will

bring permanent settlements to another planet for sure. I think that's one of the surefire ways to ensure human survival. I mean, the famous thing that people always say is that the dinosaurs didn't have a space program. Right, if the dinosaurs put that on a shirt, put that on a shirt, that the dinosaurs were able to bring other dinosaurs and create a permanent settlement on Mars, we would still have dinosaurs today, maybe probably right at least it

would have given them a better chance of surviving. And so that's it's like a way to copy and paste are humans to another planet and just help ensure our survival. I also want to get more in STEM. How do I go about that? Well, Well, for you specifically, I think you should major in a science. Uh, I would personally say you should measure and aerospace engineering. I think that would be perfect. That's my recommendation for you. I

can always get my cousin's help on that. Yes, you could see you already have an inn in the industry, So I think that aerospace engineering is the right path for you. Um, but for anyone, even if you don't want to major in science or engineering, I think just like following people on TikTok who are doing science, it's are following people on YouTube who are doing science. You can be a lifelong learner and just constantly be learning about things even if your job is totally something different

that doesn't matter. Science is inherently interesting for everyone and it's out there for you to learn. We have to take one more quick break, but when we come back, I love your thoughts on what types of programs we can have in schools to make them more accessible, especially to young women and minorities. We'll be right back and we're back. What program do you think we could implement in schools to make them more prominent, especially for minorities

and women. Yeah, well, there's already a lot of really great programs that do this, like Black Girls Code or Girls who Code, um these coding with Coding with Classy. Yes, Like all of these are such great programs that focus on bringing more representation to the people who aren't already in these fields. And I think bringing those types of organizations to your schools is such a good way to

do that exactly. And I think my generation is pretty cool, So I feel like our generation is just going to make such an impact, especially with what's going on in science and space. Um in your lifetime, what's one thing you hope to see. The major thing is obviously climate change, and I think climate fixing this issue of climate change

will be incredibly impactful all over the world. The other, like technology thing that I think would be really exciting is to bring internet to the world because right now, only half of the world has access to the internet, which always blows my mind. That it blows my mind. Right, only half of the world has access to the internet. The Worldwide Web is not actually worldwide. It's a lie. You need to fix that. It's a lie. We need

to fix that. So there are companies like SpaceX. Actually SpaceX has a project called Starlink where they're trying to launch thousands of satellites into space, creating the largest satellite constellation that's ever surrounded our planet. And they're doing that to attempt to bring Internet to the rest of the world. That's crazy, right, That would be so so in poor countries, they would still be able to have access to healthcare

and internet like they would never would have before. Exactly, so places like you said, if they don't have access to hospitals, they can get remote healthcare. If they don't have access to good schools, you can bring them education online. People can build businesses and build economies and all these things that require the Internet. Wow. Yeah, I usually don't think about how I usually think of coding when I think of the Internet, I don't think a science. But

then you realize satellites. What would we do without satellite? Oh my gosh, yeah, what would What would we do without the Internet. That the Internet like democratize is knowledge. Any question that you have today you can look online and find an answer. Of course, the flip side of that make sure they're reliable, exactly. Like the flip side of that is that now there's so much information online that it's kind of hard to sparse, like what's real

and what's fake. So there are challenges. It comes with challenges. Everything does, Yeah, exactly. So with that, I've always been curious because I've heard mixed thoughts from teachers. What are your thoughts on Wikipedia? Oh? I love Wikipedia. I think it's one of the best resources out there. I think that you should always find another citation in addition to Wikipedia. You probably shouldn't just cite Wikipedia. But in terms of becoming familiar at a very high level on a topic.

I think Wikipedia does an amazing job, but when you're using it in a paper, you should always find a different resource. I think because anybody can go and change a Wikipedia article and you just want to. That's where it gets That's where it gets dangerous. So I always find another citation. But first learning from Wikipedia, that's great. It's easy access to things. Um. And then I know you're you're also doing these chapter books for people ages six to ten. UM. I wish I had these books

when I was at age. I feel like they would have been so helpful. So it is the most recent one that's come out, and are there more to come? Oh my gosh, so thank you. The Ada Lay series is just something near and dear to my heart. So it's about this girl Aida who loves science and technology and goes on adventures to solve mysteries with tech and gadgets that she built herself. A friend said that it was like a nerdy version of Nancy Drew, which I love. I think that's a really I loved Nancy me too,

and I just think that's like the cutest analogy. And so one of the recent books that we created we actually sent to space last year. You said the character to space, or you said the book to the like the physical book. We put on a rocket and launched it to the International Space Station. Didn't make the did Yep? It got there safely, nothing bad happened. It got there and it was through this program called the story Time

from Space program. And so this program brings student like kids books to the International Space Station and then astronauts will do a read aloud while they're floating in space and you can see like the Earth in the background, and it's just the coolest thing. So my book went to space and an astronaut read it on the space station. Emily, why isn't that your Instagram? I know, that's like one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me. You need to make that you you need to say went

on the book went to space. I think you should add that in that That will change that right now? Please do For this season, I really wanted to make it a priority to make sure that we give back as a community. Okay, and every week I like to highlight a certain nonprofit or charity. Is there any organization that you work with that you want to highlight. I think that is so wonderful. Uh, this is a great

program to do that. So my that I one like organization that I love to support and I'm a mentor for. This organization is called the Brooke Owens Fellowship, and the brook Owens Fellowship it's a namesake of this individual, this woman who passed away, who was just an icon in the space industry, and the fellowship itself is helping to promote women in uh non binary individuals in the aerospace industry.

So it's basically a paid internship and mentorship and just this like community of people to help support them throughout their career and launch their career in the aerospace industry. And so the brook Owens Fellowship, that's the one that I I'm a big fan of. And my last question for you is, you know, you have your very successful at what you do. You're great at breaking down very

complex topics into simple terms. So when you write more books, have more TV shows, win some Emmy's, what would you want your legacy to be and how would you want to be remembered. I hope that when I am old and wrinkly, there are a just a gaggle of women who ended up becoming scientists and engineers and pointed to something that I may be created and said that was the reason that I first became interested in this, and I think that's going to happen. Um, thank you so

much for coming on my podcast. I am so happy that we got to talk, and I feel like I learned a lot, not just about the world around me, but what I can do to make an impact. So thank you, thank you for having me. I honestly had such a great time recording this episode because I feel like I learned so much about space. I hope you did too. You guys, what if we all went to space together? That would be awesome. If you haven't already, don't forget to subscribe, I'll say it again, and also

follow me on Instagram. Edit Sammy J S I T S S A, M M Y j A y E. As always, thank you guys so much for listening, and I'll see you guys next week. Bye.