{"id":1560,"date":"2020-09-29T14:53:09","date_gmt":"2020-09-29T21:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/?p=1560"},"modified":"2020-10-06T15:46:07","modified_gmt":"2020-10-06T22:46:07","slug":"catch-up-with-hillbrook-alumnus-alex-nickel-16-creator-youtuber-author-for-a-brighter-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/2020\/09\/catch-up-with-hillbrook-alumnus-alex-nickel-16-creator-youtuber-author-for-a-brighter-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Catch Up with Hillbrook Alumnus Alex Nickel (Class of 2016): Creator, YouTuber, & Author for a Brighter Tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Hillbrook graduate Alex Nickel (HB class of 2016) is going bananas, and he\u2019d love it if you would watch. In truth, \u201cAlex Goes Bananas\u201d is the name of Alex\u2019s new video series on Nebula, a streaming platform for educational videos. In the show, Alex (who was born in 2001) explores pop culture from the late 1990\u2019s and early 2000\u2019s, learning for the first time about pop icons like \u201cThe Spice Girls\u201d, \u201cGwen Stefani, \u201cLimp Bizkit\u201d, the movie \u201cClueless\u201d and more. He discovers what made them famous and their impact on pop culture. For instance, did you know besides their catchy songs, The Spice Girls also popularized the slogan, \u201cGirl Power\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long before he went \u201cBananas\u201d, Alex was creating educational videos for his YouTube channel, \u201cTechnicality<\/em><\/a>\u201d. On Technicality<\/em>, Alex researches and explains things he finds fascinating from history, psychology, technology and science. Among other things, his Technicality<\/em> episodes have explored the origins of the word \u201cbamboozle,\u201d explained the historical significance of the Newton Pippin apple, looked at how toilets work, why chocolate is shiny, the origin of the selfie, and whether \u201cSeinfeld\u201d is funny in translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a project he started while in sixth grade at Hillbrook. Six years and more than 80 episodes later, Technicality<\/em> is still going strong. It has over 55 thousand subscribers and millions of total views. Along the way, Alex has gained recognition from the Huffington Post, Mashable, and CBS\u2019s \u201cUndercover Boss.\u201d He has made guest appearances on other popular educational YouTube Channels from \u201cPhysics Girl\u201d to \u201cCounter Arguments\u201d and Tom Scott. He has given a popular TedX talk, and delighted as his Technicality <\/em>videos have become assigned viewing in classrooms all over the world. If that weren\u2019t enough for this recent high school graduate, Alex also wrote a book in 2019 about composting entitled, \u201cBehold This Compost<\/a>\u201d where he looks at city-wide composting programs and why they are needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex, who graduated from The Nueva High School in spring 2020 and is attending Washington University in St. Louis this fall, is clearly not only curious, but very energetic. Asked how he got started making educational videos, Alex points to Hillbrook and his 6th grade science class. The class, which focused on problem-solving and design thinking, challenged students to find a problem and try to fix it. Initially, Alex intended to design a better \u201cGoPro,\u201d but he was diverted by the notion of educational videos. As he tells it, Alex and his buddies often spent lunch hours watching educational YouTube videos in the Hillbrook Innovation Lab (Hillbrook\u2019s old design classroom). Says Alex, \u201cI started thinking, \u2018I can do that.\u2019\u201d One weekend he tried making his own educational video. He showed it to the 6th grade science teacher who loved it, telling him,  \u2018Alex, you need to do more of that!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, instead of designing a better \u201cGoPro,\u201d Alex decided the problem he would solve is student engagement in the learning process. He studied blended learning (where students learn via electronic and online media as well as traditional face-to-face teaching) and used his research to create Technicality<\/em>, a video series that explains science and history through entertaining YouTube videos. He made videos throughout middle school at Hillbrook and continued in high school at Nueva. Alex says the encouragement of his sixth grade teacher and the lessons of Hillbrook\u2019s core values \u201cBe Kind, Be Curious, Take Risks and Be Your Best\u201d were fundamental to his success. Says Alex, \u201cI definitely think of Hillbrook\u2019s core values in a lot of the things I do. A lot of my projects are infused with curiosity, I want to learn more about the world, and also risk-taking, a lot of the stuff I\u2019m learning for the first time with the viewer and those two things combine to make a powerful experience\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex says Hillbrook\u2019s emphasis on problem-solving and asking questions helped him not only with his Technicality<\/em> series, but also the rigors of high school at Nueva. He says, \u201cGoing into Nueva I was 100% prepared to handle the material because I knew how to approach problems. In 8th grade geometry, Mr. Sears really taught us how to think about and break down problems, as opposed to just the rote learning of mathematics. That was really helpful because it taught me how to approach challenges in the future.\u201d Alex says he never could have handled linear algebra senior year at Nueva if not for the math foundation he received at Hillbrook. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Hillbrook, Alex was student-body Co-Head where he was known for his enthusiastic and irresistibly goofy Monday Flag presentations. He created a \u201cWheel of Awesome\u201d to celebrate student achievements, and is still proud of being part of the student-led effort to bring navy shirts to the Hillbrook uniform code. Looking back on his Hillbrook days, Alex says he appreciates having grown up in a community of learners, thinkers and people just as curious as him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After taking a gap year in the 2020-21 school year, Alex will enter WashU with an \u201cundeclared\u201d major saying he wants to learn how to become a fulfilled thinker. He is interested in philosophy and sociology because he says, \u201cunderstanding how humans work and the systems we create will be helpful information going forward\u201d. He intends to continue his YouTube Technicality<\/em> series which he describes as \u201chis passion and his calling\u201d and says everything he learns in college about science and humanities will only add depth to his videos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Says Alex, \u201cI don\u2019t know exactly the path I will take, but I am leaning into the uncertainty.\u201d Indeed, to watch Alex embrace life as a giant learning opportunity, well, let\u2019s just say going bananas has never looked so appealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hillbrook graduate Alex Nickel (HB class of 2016) is going bananas, and he\u2019d love it if you would watch. In truth, \u201cAlex Goes Bananas\u201d is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1560"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1584,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions\/1584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}