Bill Nye still has a knack for delivering science to youth. Case-in-point: he’s just explained evolution using emojis:

If you grew up in the 1990s and watched his show even once, you know Bill Nye has a way of making science exciting and accessible. He did experiments and explained what he was doing in a way that made sense to viewers in college, high school, and even grade school. But he did this with words and props. At the risk of sounding old, kids today communicate a little differently today than they did 20 years ago. They use snapchats and emojis instead of pencils and paper.

That’s why Bill Nye’s latest video is subtitled with emojis — it’s science communication for a new generation. It was done in cooperation with Mashable as part of Nye’s participation in GE’s #EmojiScience project.

In the video, Nye gives a succinct introduction to evolution. A few billion years ago, molecules (in this case made of four emoji faces) took energy from the Sun to hook together (cue fishing and couple emojis). Those molecules copied themselves but imperfectly, forming molecules made of different emoji faces. Once those molecules got complicated enough, they formed single-celled life that in the emoji world look suspiciously like space invaders. These eventually formed multi-cellular organisms like plants for which we have all kinds of emojis. And the key, says Nye with multiple clock emojis, is time.

Nye’s overview of evolution with emojis, which features an emoji of himself in the purple bow tie and lab coat he’s wearing in the video, is a pretty excellent example of science communication for a new generation. 

—

IMAGE: Screenshot via YouTube/Mashable