Mark Rober says having 76 million followers is a ‘responsibility.’ He’s making the most of it. |
If you haven’t heard of Mark Rober, your kid almost certainly has. Rober, a former NASA engineer, has more than 76 million followers on YouTube, where he’s famous for wildly creative science experiments.
In one popular series, he tries to create a squirrel-proof bird feeder and eventually builds an obstacle course to challenge the agile creatures. In another, he invents a robot that can outkick the NFL’s best field-goal kicker. Probably Rober’s most famous experiment involved creating “glitter bombs” to catch porch-pirate package thieves.
Rober left NASA in 2013 to go out on his own, creating things he thought were cool and making some of the most entertaining and educational science content on the Internet. Today, he never loses perspective on the privilege of his massive platform, which he calls a “responsibility.”
Rober does cool science with Wish kids at Disneyland
Rober grew up in Brea, California, about 10 minutes from Disneyland. As a kid, he could hear the nighttime fireworks from his neighborhood. Getting to go to the park at all felt like a big deal. Getting escorted to the front of a ride? Unthinkable.
“That would have been my peak,” he told Upworthy, laughing.
This week, Rober got the experience of a lifetime meeting with several kids from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, including Piper, a young girl with Marfan syndrome, and Brendan, a boy with aggressive leukemia who says Rober’s videos kept his spirits up during treatments.
Alongside fellow creators like MrBeast and Dude Perfect, Rober led kids through an egg-drop challenge off the top of Avengers Tower and got to spend much of the day just hanging out and riding rides with his new friends. It’s all part of an event put together by YouTube, The Walt Disney Company, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation called “Wishes Assemble.”
When asked if he ever could have imagined, when he was working at NASA or creating his first YouTube videos, that one day it would be a child’s greatest wish in the world to meet him, he said, “No way. Like, five years ago, I’d have been like, ‘no,’ two years ago, I’d have been like, ‘no way.’” It’s still hard for him to wrap his mind around the impact he has on the kids who watch his videos.
Rober recalls he was told that among YouTube creators, he ranked just behind MrBeast last year in fulfilled wishes. “It’s crazy,” he said. “I want to remind everyone—I make science videos. Since when is science cool? Like, I shouldn’t be getting that many requests.”
Rober has worked with Make-A-Wish many times before. He says it can be tough not to get overwhelmed with emotion when hearing the Wish kids’ stories, but overall, he just tries to bring his signature fun energy and enjoy his time with them as much as he can.
“[The goal is] escapism,” he said. “These families and kids have been through some pretty tough stuff.”
Not Rober’s first foray into philanthropy
Rober’s philanthropy extends well beyond Make-A-Wish.
He’s led Team Trees, Team Seas, and Team Water alongside fellow creators and helped raise tens of millions of dollars for environmental causes. Like Rober’s experiments and stunts, the projects have been rooted in real impact, not just dollar amounts: Team Trees has planted 24 million trees worldwide, and counting.
Rober has also partnered with STEM education nonprofits and has raised millions of dollars for autism awareness and grants for autistic people, a cause close to his heart: Rober’s son has autism.
He says there was no one crystallizing moment when he realized he had the platform to actually make a difference. It was more of a slow realization about what having a platform actually means.
“You come to realize that you have a big megaphone and a spotlight, and it almost becomes a responsibility,” he said. “It’s almost immoral not to do something with that. To move the needle in the right direction.”
Rethinking how America teaches science
Next up for Rober and his team is something so massive it sounds impossible—which is exactly the kind of challenge he specializes in: completely reimagining the way kids learn science in school.
He’s taking everything he’s learned about what kids love about science and engineering from his videos and applying it to a real curriculum. It’s taken a team of 50 people and $60 million, but the new curriculum, called Class CrunchLabs, will meet all the rigorous educational standards while still being fun—and it’ll be free for all educators.
Rober will be publishing a TED Talk on the project on May 5.
“Most of the curriculum out there—teachers have to pay for it, and those curriculum writers never had to earn a single view,” he said. Rober, for his part, has earned about 16 billion. “So they just make really boring content. Science should not be boring.”
Rober pays his respects to the work of Bill Nye, but notes that a lot of (very) old Nye videos are still being used in education. He thinks we can do better by today’s kids and likens his engaging approach to “hiding the vegetables.”
“You could have the best curriculum in the world. If the students don’t care, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “We know how to solve that motivation gap. And that’s like 90% of the issue.”
It’s hard to believe this is the guy who got famous for inventing a Halloween costume that made it look like the wearer had a bloody hole in their torso. But seeing how seriously he now takes his responsibility—an audience of tens of millions of people, many of whom are children—it’s not hard to see why it would be a kid’s biggest wish to meet him, especially alongside other heroes like The Avengers.
When Rober isn’t making kids’ dreams come true or reimagining the education system, he’s planning his next video. It may or may not involve him playing tug-of-war against a real lion. It sounds crazy, but we wouldn’t bet against him.
A single door can open up a world of endless possibilities. For homeowners, the front door of their house is a gateway to financial stability, job security, and better health. Yet for many, that door remains closed. Due to the rising costs of housing, 1 in 3 people around the world wake up without the security of safe, affordable housing.
Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has made it their mission to unlock and open the door to opportunity for families everywhere, and their efforts have paid off in a big way. Through their work over the past 50 years, more than 65 million people have gained access to new or improved housing, and the movement continues to gain momentum. Since 2011 alone, Habitat for Humanity has expanded access to affordable housing by a hundredfold.
A world where everyone has access to a decent home is becoming a reality, but there’s still much to do. As they celebrate 50 years of building, Habitat for Humanity is inviting people of all backgrounds and talents to be part of what comes next through Let’s Open the Door, a global campaign that builds on this momentum and encourages people everywhere to help expand access to safe, affordable housing for those who need it most. Here’s how the foundation to a better world starts with housing, and how everyone can pitch in to make it happen.
Globally, almost 3 billion people, including 1 in 6 U.S. families, struggle with high costs and other challenges related to housing. A crisis in itself, this also creates larger problems that affect families and communities in unexpected ways. People who lack affordable, stable housing are also more likely to experience financial hardship in other areas of their lives, since a larger share of their income often goes toward rent, utilities, and frequent moves. They are also more likely to experience health problems due to chronic stress or environmental factors, such as mold. Housing insecurity also goes hand-in-hand with unstable employment, since people may need to move further from their jobs or switch jobs altogether to offset the cost of housing.
Affordable homeownership creates a stable foundation for families to thrive, reducing stress and increasing the likelihood for good health and stable employment. Habitat for Humanity builds and repairs homes with individual families, but it also strengthens entire communities as well. The MicroBuild® Initiative, for example, strengthens communities by increasing access to loans for low-income families seeking to build or repair their homes. Habitat ReStore locations provide affordable appliances and building materials to local communities, in addition to creating job and volunteer opportunities that support neighborhood growth.
Everyone can play a part in the fight for housing equity and the pursuit of a better world. Over the past 50 years, Habitat for Humanity has become a leader in global housing thanks to an engaged network of volunteers—but you don’t need to be skilled with a hammer to make a meaningful impact. Building an equitable future means calling on a wide range of people and talents.Here’s how you can get involved in the global housing movement:
Speaking up on social media about the growing housing crisis
Volunteering on a Habitat for Humanity build in your local community
Travel and build with Habitat in the U.S. or in one of 60 countries where we work around the globe
Join the Let’s Open the Door movement and, when you donate, you can create your own personalized door
Shop or donate at your local Habitat ReStore
Every action, big and small, drives a global movement toward a better future. A safe home unlocks opportunity for families and communities alike, but it’s volunteers and other supporters, working together with a shared vision, who can open the door for everyone.
Visit habitat.org/open-door to learn more and get involved today.
From the outside gate, Far Meadow Farm looks quite standard. A fenced-off riding area with two horses; hens pecking at the ground. Trees gather around the buildings, and in the gaps between them, you can see glimpses of the moors beyond: windy, dramatic landscapes shaped by wild remoteness, rain, and lacerating winds.
Here, on a small farm in Godley, a bucolic suburb in northwest England on the edge of Manchester, you’ll find farmer Alan French, a 76‑year‑old local who refuses to let his little slice of pastoral heaven disappear—not again.
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“I just think, piss off, leave me alone, I’m not moving. Every time I move somewhere developers want it,” French told the Manchester Evening News. “This is no longer a rural place. It’s going to get worse if they get their way.”
Before moving to Godley, French had to leave two previous homes to make way for development. Now, he’s been here for 17 years, and the humble farmer is fed up. As a huge new housing project backed by Tameside Council closes in around him, he keeps repeating the same four words to anyone who asks what happens next: “I am not moving.”
A life of being pushed along
French grew up in the days when the strip of land between the Tameside and Stockport boroughs still felt rural, its fields and farmhouses sitting just outside Manchester’s reach. As the city expanded, housing estates descended on places like Romiley, a village just a few miles south of Godley, and local councils turned to a planning tool that lets them seize land for “the greater good.”
In the United Kingdom, it’s a compulsory purchase order, or CPO. In the United States, it’s eminent domain, the power government agencies use to acquire private land for things like highways, schools, pipelines, and housing.
Over the course of his life, French has had to leave two homes: both in Romiley, both because of compulsory purchase orders tied to development projects. That’s a pattern.
Now, with Godley Green Garden Village looming, he’s scared it’s happening again. Yet the 76-year-old farmer remains resolute: he will not sell Far Meadow Farm voluntarily.
What’s coming to........