Educational Video Production: My Experience Making K12 STEM Content for a National Honor Society

Hi! I’m Artemis Gilbert, and in the summer before my sophomore year I’ve been a video production intern at the National STEM Honor Society, or NSTEM. (I’m not set on a major yet, but maybe Math or Philosophy.) I’ve made several short videos to interest and encourage K–12 students in STEM and promote NSTEM as an organization. While none of my grade schools had large NSTEM chapters, I did really enjoy my years in the National Math Honor Society in high school—so I knew from the start that I’d also enjoy an internship where I could combine that with an interest in video and film production I’ve had since I was little.

NSTEM is headquartered in Gloucester, Massachusetts, but I worked remotely (from near Portland, Oregon), so my schedule was pretty flexible. I worked almost every day from 1–6 hours, whether that be brainstorming video ideas, researching, writing scripts, recording, animating, finding stock footage, editing, or attending meetings with my supervisors and fellow video interns. The meetings (once or twice a week) were helpful because we’d all give each other feedback (ranging from comments on a clip being too short or advice on constructing a compelling video hook) on ideas or finished drafts, causing mutual inspiration and growth. My videos—taking a few days to multiple weeks—mainly covered astronomy and mathematics, partially motivated by the astronomy and math courses I’ve taken so far and enjoyed at Whitman. This internship let me use what I’ve learned (both in terms of content and problem-solving skills) in my STEM classes—like those at Whitman—to help teach STEM concepts to others in videos. It was also just fun to re-engage concepts I’d learned in classes long after they ended.

With this internship, I’ve gotten to develop my skills with writing, working in education, and producing video, all interests I’ve had for a long time. I had some background with education, but significantly benefitted from a few months of more regular, intensive, independent and especially project-based experience, where I was more immersed in the inner workings of an educational program. Getting to make educational content for an audience learning the topic for the first time helped prepare me for future jobs in the field, and was also a nice mix-up from tutoring what kids have already been taught. More generally, I gained valuable experience working with and under others, organizing an independent work process, and networking. I’ve appreciated the opportunity to further explore how curricula are organized and presented without yet having to undertake the further responsibilities of a class of kids in real teaching. This work has overall helped me better understand—and reinforce my own passion for—the field of education.

I feel I’ve significantly improved in my ability to communicate academic concepts effectively, as well as in technical video skills like editing fluidity. Revisiting previous projects has been helpful for analyzing my growth, since each serves as a snapshot of my skills at a different point in time. It was also nice being able to adjust my videos based on what got positive feedback when they were posted on NSTEM’s social media pages, and apply those lessons to future projects. 

This internship experience has been an amazing way to learn about and contribute to STEM education—as well as deeply enjoyable—and I’m very thankful to NSTEM and the Whitman Internship Grant (WIG) that made it possible.