The presentation began the same way as his TV show: with an enthusiastic chant of “Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill!”

Bill Nye, best known for his hit children’s show, “Bill Nye, the Science Guy,” spoke in a packed Stamp Student Union Grand Ballroom on Thursday night. Barely a minute went by without a collective laugh erupting from the audience as Nye used comedy to encourage the crowd to change the world through science.

“You can change the world. You all can change the world,” Nye said. “You are empowered to leave the planet better than how you found it. How hard is that?”

Sophomore Thomas Ogden — who sported the same state flag bow tie Nye wore — said “Bill Nye, the Science Guy” is what led him to strive to make a difference through the STEM fields.

“In elementary school, our teachers would give us lessons in science, but they could never really inspire me or convey how cool science was,” said Ogden, a physics and mechanical engineering major. “But whenever we’d watch one of Bill Nye’s videos, he made our lessons captivating on a whole other level. I hope to grow up to be like him and inspire other people to become scientifically literate.”

A new generation of students could be motivated to pursue science like Ogden, as Nye said at the end of the night that he is “working with a certain entity to bring the show back.” 

Nye emphasized the importance of combating climate change throughout the presentation. He urged students to become informed, have an opinion and vote for policies that support sustainable initiatives. He requested of people not interested in voting: “Please just shut up.”

“Climate change is the biggest problem we’ve all got right now, and as far as what to do about it — everything all at once. Everything we can possibly do,” Nye said. “I want the U.S. to lead the world in dealing with climate change. I don’t want the U.S. to be the world’s leader in everything to do with it.”

In May, Nye appeared on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver for a sketch in which he and 96 like-minded scientists debated three others who do not believe humans are causing the Earth to warm. 

“It is interesting to note that there are more scientists who are concerned about climate change than there are who embrace the connection between cancer and cigarettes,” Nye told the crowd Thursday night. “Nowadays, pretty much everyone accepts that cigarettes are not so good for you, cancer-wise.”

Nye also discussed his debate in February with creationist Ken Ham, which has garnered more than 3.4 million views on YouTube.

First, Nye joked, “Yeah I made it up, I buried those fossils all over the world.” 

But he later turned serious and said, “We have this unique situation in the U.S. where people don’t believe in evolution. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t believe in weather.’ Evolution is the fact of life. If you have a creation story that doesn’t embrace or include that, then it’s an incomplete story.”

Nye said education is one of the best ways to raise the standard of living for females, and he encouraged them to pursue careers in science. 

“Half of humans are women and girls, so let’s have half the scientists be women and girls,” Nye said to the cheering crowd.  

Nye said one of his childhood teachers once told him there were more stars in the sky than there were grains of sand on a beach, making him think, “I’m a speck on a speck orbiting a speck with a bunch of other specks in an orbit of specklessness. I suck! I am nothing!”

Although the crowd thought this was just another one of Nye’s jokes, he continued to say that because of this, he realized that, with your brain, you can imagine your place in the world, “and with your brain you can imagine a better tomorrow.”

This message reached about 1,400 people who attended last night’s event. 

Tickets sold out three hours after they went on sale Tuesday, said Victor Chen, the Student Entertainment Events lectures director who proposed the event. Students began lining up at 4:30 p.m. to get seats. 

There was some criticism on social media from students who thought SEE should have held the event in a larger venue. But Chen said hosting the event in a different venue would have given the tickets a cost, and this free venue made the tickets free as well. 

“I chose Bill because I wanted to get the students hyped about learning and more about going to school for classes than going to school for parties and drinking,” the senior computer science major said.

Nye ended his presentation to a standing ovation and more chanting before taking questions from the audience. Almost every question began with “So, I just want to say, I’m a big fan.” 

One question, however, touched on a comment Nye made earlier in the night. 

“You spoke so eloquently about our place in the world and how we are all so insignificant in the universe,” one student said. “So how does it make you feel to be so significant in our lives?”