Alan Llavore | Office of Marketing and Communications | (909) 537-5007 | allavore@csusb.edu
Albert Einstein once said, “If you can't explain it to a 6-year-old, you don't understand it yourself.”
It’s sage advice for anyone in the position to teach or explain concepts, ideas and processes to others. But what if you’re able to take your expertise and explain a given topic within it to a panel of 6-year-olds in one minute?
Kate Liszka, The Benson and Pamela Harer Fellow in Egyptology and Cal State San Bernardino professor of history, did exactly that for a History Channel program aptly titled, “The Einstein Challenge.”
The premise of the show is this, according to its website: “The world is complicated, and sometimes we need things explained to us like we’re kids. Today’s greatest minds will do just that! In each episode of The Einstein Challenge, two world-class experts in science, history and engineering will see who can best explain complicated concepts to kids.”
In “Pyramid Schemes,” Episode 13 of Season 1 of the show, Liszka was in competition with another Egyptologist, Willa Snowbender, and each had only one minute to teach kids how to read hieroglyphs, to explain how an Archimedean screw works, and to describe how the Egyptians built the pyramids.
Liszka incorporated mnemonic devices and memorable moments into her rapid-fire descriptions to help the kids recall the answers. And it worked – creating a great episode that mixes fun and learning. She prevailed and won show by making it to the final round.
Interested in how well she was able to teach high-level concepts so that almost everyone can understand – and maybe learn a new thing or two yourself? Catch the “Pyramid Schemes” and other episodes of “The Einstein Challenge” on the History Channel, streaming on both Hulu and Amazon Prime.
