On any given episode of East Los High, the highly addictive teen soap on Hulu that just got a fourth season, you'll see love triangles and heartbreak, mean girls and bad boys, and some seriously skillful dancing. Think a Latino Degrassi meets Gossip Girl meets Glee.
Clocking in at 20 minutes an episode with lots of online extras, the show is calibrated to get fans in their tweens, teens and 20s to inhale and then tweet things like "Finished all 3 seasons of #EastLosHigh in a week and now I have no reason to live anymore," and, "OMFG! I want season four right now!!!!!!!"
But it turns out the show, which is nearing its fourth season and follows a group of mostly Latino high schoolers in East Los Angeles, serves up more than cat fights and cute outfits — it's also a science experiment, conducted by a team of social scientists and health workers in cahoots with screenwriters and studio executives.
For the past three years, these unlikely collaborators have been folding information about sex and sexual health into the show's frothy plot lines. Their mission: to make a hit show that also helps young Latinas make healthy life choices.
[For more of this story, written by Maanvi Singh, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/co...a-science-experiment]
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