Science Documentaries for Youngsters? 383
An anonymous reader writes "My 7-year-old daughter is asking some interesting questions, such as, 'How did everything get created?' I've explained, in general terms, our family's non-religious views on the subject of creation and the Big Bang. I'd like to find some documentary videos geared to this age level that may explain better these concepts and theories. I've found a few PBS specials online - Stephen Hawking stuff - but they seem to be geared for young adults and older. Does anyone have recommended titles that might be better geared to children of this age bracket?"
Symmetry (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/ [symmetrymagazine.org]
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To be honest, I can't see a 7-year old being that excited about particle physics and the daily routine of scientists at Fermilab.
In fact I can't really see anyone being interested in the daily routine of scientists at Fermilab...
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Seventh-graders have demonstrated that you are completely and utterly wrong [fnal.gov] .
Avoid TV, go for discussion and books (Score:5, Interesting)
As parent says, get the kid interested in books and magazines. Take them to public lectures. These are all typically higher quality than TV/video. Read up yourself and do some of that quality time stuff.
I'm a homeschooling parent and spend a lot of time having discussions on a wide variety of subjects with the kids. Sure, this is a bit more effort (I have to read up on stuff I don't know about), but that gives you a second chance at an interesting education too.
... And don't give me that "I don't have the time" BS. It does not take a lot of effort to read up on stuff, instead of watching crap on TV. If you don't have the time to interact with kids, get yourself sterilized.
Beginnings. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Beginnings. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Define "useful" please.
Re:Beginnings. (Score:4, Insightful)
So, apart from the meaningless, out of context quotes from "authorities", your mystics tap into something that can't be detected and produce no communicatible results.
I'm sure it's a very nice delusion, with a way to train the release of endorphins or self-stimulate that part of the mind that produces that "one-with-the-universe" feeling (that can also be accomplished with an electrode), and it may even produce some nice rule-to-live-by....
But if you stop at mysticism - you're no better than those parents that let their kid die because they used prayer instead of medical attention.
Re:Beginnings. (Score:5, Insightful)
It can also be accomplished with hallucinogenic drugs, and it is indeed a wonderful delusion. I just wish other people would realise it IS only a delusion (I'll happily have a couple of tabs of acid and go all mystical for 12 hours or so, but while I still marvel at the tricks my mind plays on me, I still KNOW they are just tricks.
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How do I "know"? Well, I don't know... not anymore than anyone "knows" anything (how do you "know" you are reading Slashdot right now, rather than locked in a mental institution on Mars in the 25th Century?).
But what I can do is surmise, go with all of the available evidence, apply Occam's Razor, and make an informed decision based on that.
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Any decent scientist will tell you that free will has nothing to do with whether or not we're "chemical machines". Most would find your argument humorous at best.
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And who is strangely unable to demonstrate these insights to anyone else in a repeatable manner.
Reproducible, yes (Score:2)
Not true! Anyone who practices meditation intensely enough - with proper guidance - can reproduce the experience. People have been helping others to reproduce the experience of meditative insight for a very long time.
In Zen you are reminded that the mind plays tricks, and you are encouraged to ignore any bizarre mystical phenomena and stick to the task at hand, which is liberating the mind from the delusion of yo
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Ergo, anyone who cannot reproduce the experience is not practicing meditation intensely enough. Your statement is unfalsifiable.
Falsifiable (Score:3, Insightful)
Well if you want to get down to it, nothing can be proven to you until your senses and your reason have sifted it and found it to be consistent with your experience. In some cases an hypothesis will be so out of whack with your experience that no argument will be able to convince you of its truth, and you'll need to see for yourself.
Insight experiences are simply the most powerful example of this principle. The only validation to be f
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Re:Beginnings. (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of quoting the matrix you may want to change to quoting Einstein:
The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear-that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms-it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature.
-Albert Einstein, The World as I See It
Re:Beginnings. (Score:4, Interesting)
That's worth a big damn.
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That's worth a big damn.
Whoa!
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Semantics!
However, give me a circle whose radius is infinity and I'll show you a straight line.
Wonders of Life Series (Score:5, Informative)
Our Mr. Sun
Hemo the Magnificent
Unchained Goddess
The Strange Case of Cosmic Rays
are available on DVD. The whole series had nine films, but I haven't been able to find the others.
Winged Migration is also quite good.
www how things work dot com of course (Score:3, Insightful)
as for books, try the library
Re:www how things work dot com of course (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia for Kids:
http://schools-wikipedia.org/ [schools-wikipedia.org]
Article on Wikipedia for Kids:
http://www.marrowbones.com/commons/technosocial/2007/12/wikipedia_for_kids_teaching_a.html [marrowbones.com]
NASA for Kids:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html [nasa.gov]
and yes, if you want kids books, ask a librarian at the library, imho
Wikipedia lessons for kids (Score:2, Troll)
Edit it. Add the fact that she has a dinosaur for a pet. Or the part about her having five elbows. Save. Show. (And then revert.) Ask your kid about the wisdom of using Wikipedia. (*)
I am actually proud of my kids' school, where they have banned wikipedia for use as a source.
(*) Extra Credit. Visit a free wifi coffee house. Try and deface the page for Jamie Lynn Spears, or Lindsay Lohan. Add some sort of scandal. Save
Re:Wikipedia lessons for kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Edit it. Add the fact that she has a dinosaur for a pet. Or the part about her having five elbows. Save. Show. (And then revert.) Ask your kid about the wisdom of using Wikipedia. (*)
Better idea, do all of that, but DON'T revert it. Go back to the page sometime later and point out that someone else has fixed the mistakes. THEN ask your kid about the wisdom of using Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is not infallible, and mistakes can slip through and even remain for a long time in some rare cases, but most things will be fixed very quickly, and "in general" it is a fairly accurate resource (especially if you actually check cited references). It is, on the whole, far MORE accurate than many other accepted resources precisely because it is editable.
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SLIGHT problem with your method - it almost always will not work. On the occasions that I review a Wikipedia article, I don't just "check that there is a source", but I actually check the validity, quality, reliability and veracity of that source. And I'm not alone in my thoroughness.
I am definitely NOT new to "this Wikipedia thing"
Pure FUD (Score:3, Informative)
There are a lot of smart, careful, and bored people who do nothing but watch the global changelog and review new edits.
I am actually proud of my kids' school, where they have banned wikipedia for use as a source.
Good for them. In the coming century, that policy will make it that much easier for my kids to outcompete yours.
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WP should not be used as source material. That does not make it useless. The same is true for any encyclopedia.
WP is an excellent resource for several things. It provides a good overview of a subject. Often, if you're only somewhat knowledgeable on a subject, it can fill in some gaps in ways that are obviously not horribly wrong. For example, I've learned a lot of math on WP -- I can follow the derivations, and see their correctness independent of any other source, but I couldn't produce them on my o
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Simpsons to the rescue again! (Score:5, Funny)
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The Simpsons is actually a good suggestion since discussion is the point.
The Magic School Bus Inside the Solar System mentions a couple things about formation of planets.
Also, just watch the "adult" PBS specials... they're usually at a roughly 6th grade level anyway, and your child will ignore or ask questions about what she or he doesn't understand.
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Torrents? (Score:2, Informative)
"The Universe" on the History Channel (Score:4, Informative)
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"The Universe" has a really bizarre online distribution model [history.com] where they always have an assortment of "short" interesting clips and one or two old "full length episodes" posted for streaming.
For instance, the Full Episodes that are up now are "Nebulas" and "Cosmic Collisions"... and you can expect CC to be replaced by something else a week from now. For a 7-year old, I would venture to guess that watching this streaming over the internet isn't optimal though.
Another alternative is to just order the fir [aetv.com]
Cosmos (Score:5, Informative)
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I wasn't much older when this came out, maybe 9 years old. But everything is explained so clearly and so simply, it truly is a masterpiece despite the now "dated" computer graphics.
Re:Cosmos (Score:4, Informative)
But with the science? Cosmos is of profound educational and inspirational value. It's been something like 30 years since it came out -- I tend to think of Cosmos in one mental breath with the specials about relativity that came out in 1979 for the centennial of Einstein's birth -- but I remember feeling like this was something special. Sagan was a guy who really had a sense of just how damn cool the universe is.
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BBC had a more recent one called Space with Sam Neill which is very similar to Cosmos. Check that out.
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Just tell him what the scientists tell us (Score:2, Insightful)
That should put everything in the perspective a 7 year old can understand and not be anything less than our scientists told us. It just happened!
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But remember that a 7 year old may not yet have the conceptual framework to deal with this - try again at age 11 or so.
We have lots of explanations along the lines of "the tooth fairy did it" or "Santa Klaus did it" or "god did it" but all of these ultimately just reveal the fact that we don't know yet, but we have lots of speculation.
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All the "non-religious" explanations of the origin of the universe start out with the universe already here.
Not all, for example the notion of a multiverse but that is getting to the point where it is not testable. I personally like the notion that there was nothing before since that instant was at t=0. Hard to have a time before the universe was created and time started.
The real answer is that we will probably never be able to test any hypothesis for anything before our universe was created. Science is all about creating and testing hypothesis, so yeah there never really will be 'non-religious' explanation.
Inc
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Beats the heck out of Haloperidol, which is what you should probably be on.
Look at PBS again. (Score:5, Informative)
in fact that tv show is good for chemistry, molecular physics, biology, etc....
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If you want a family gathering in front of the computer instead
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It's like Reboot, which teaches you an awful lot about computers, but soon as you learn all that stuff for real, you also learn that nope-a mainframe isn't its own little city.
Uh, I'm religious and I think magic school bus is one of the coolest things ever. (I also like
The only thing that I know is this: (Score:5, Insightful)
The best thing that you can do IMHO is to take your daughter in hand and go find the answer. She will learn two things at a minimum: The answer to the question as best as it can be answered, the fact that you care to do that for her, and the methods you use to find answers. That last one is way more important than you might think.
I used to hate hearing the words "go look it up" but it did lead to me looking for a lot of things... and finding them. When she learns from you HOW to look for answers, hopefully she will never stop looking for answers as long as she lives.
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Mr. Wizard premiered in 1951...
Growing Up In The Universe (Score:2, Informative)
http://richarddawkins.net/article,826,Growing-Up-in-the-Universe-2-Disc-DVD-Set,The-Richard-Dawkins-Foundation-for-Reason-and-Science
Mod Parent Up (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want a solid, secular explanation of evolutionary biology, do yourself a favor and watch this series with your children. You can tell your children "God was behind it" or anything else that will make you feel better about it, but at least they'll have an accurate understanding of the
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Magazines and the Public Library (Score:3, Interesting)
Try the PBS special anyway (Score:2)
http://richarddawkins.net/growingupintheuniverse (Score:4, Informative)
Re:http://richarddawkins.net/growingupintheunivers (Score:2)
http://richarddawkins.net/growingupintheuniverse [richarddawkins.net]
Not a title of a documentary per se (Score:3, Informative)
But a repository of good multimedia clips and lessons aimed at children of different ages: http://www.teachersdomain.org/ [teachersdomain.org]
This site is run by the PBS station WGBH. You might be able to find footage of what you are looking for here and questions that could spark and interesting conversation between yourself and your child.
A golden opportunity (Score:2, Insightful)
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Shows I enjoyed as a youth besides Connections:
321-Contact
Square One (still shown in repackaged form on some channels today)
Beyond 2000
Newton's Apple
Mr. Wizard's World (never really liked Beakman's world, Nye was only okay)
Voyage of the Mimi
Kids TV has gone downhill (Score:3, Informative)
Bill Nye and Beakman (especially Beakman) were not as good because they were too interested in being flashy and funny and catering to kids with no attention spans.
I don't know if there's anything comparable on TV today.
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Children's TV has gone downhill ever since Smurfs was canceled.
Take one of the more popular kid shows on now, Dora. You have Dora, which teaches that a little kid and a pet monkey can wander around, take trips with strangers, do dangerous things like climb mountains, without even asking a parent if it's OK.
Old, but brilliant... (Score:5, Informative)
I know it's fairly local (i.e. our planet) - but it is inspiring.
The Planet Earth (Score:2, Informative)
Fast, Cheap, And Out Of Control (Score:2)
Planetarium Possibilities (Score:4, Insightful)
Check your local planetarium, if possible. They often have shows geared to younger children.
I took my niece (then about 6 years old) to one a couple of times after she showed interest in star-gazing. I think these days, she (now 9 years old) might be better than me at picking out constellations!
Tell her the truth.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Try to explain the difference between religion, fact, and theory. Then move on to children's versions of the "good books". Allow her to make her own decisions but stress that she's also allowed to change her mind.
Finally, go back to point one; nobody knows. She's no better than someone who adopts an alternate view.
Kids can handle it (Score:3, Interesting)
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They DID remove people's hearts. Why do you think it was inappropriate for your son to gain this factual knowledge? As long as you aren't showing him graphic depictions of the process that are going to give him nightmares, I seeing absolutely nothing wrong.
Words and books (Score:2)
"Where did things come from" is a subject area that can't be simply answered and understood without more investigation.
Once Upon a Time... Life (Score:2)
As the user comment on imdb says: "This animation TV series is simply the best way for children to learn how the human body works. Yes, this is biology but they will never tell it is." That's exactly how I remember it from when I saw it (and at the same time, a lot of the information stuck and came back later on when I learned about those topics in school).
There's a related one about space ( http://www [imdb.com]
Try reading (Score:2)
Solving the wrong problem... (Score:2)
Observe your daugher carefully (Score:5, Interesting)
By far the biggest screwup of modern western education - with huge, seemingly unrelated consequences for society - is that it treats kids under teenage and even teenagers far to much like intellectually fully developed grown-ups. Appealing to pure reason and logic in a 7-year old does more damage than good, with consequences that show up far later in life (lack of will and motivation, concentration problems, undeveloped social skills, restlessness, etc. - we geek kids of the 80ties know all this). If here questions are of the usual nature (her *praticing* the process of questioning!) then see it as a game and follow along, even if it turns into seemingly strange circular Q&A sessions. Ask her repeating questions in return yourself - she's praticing the act of questioning, the subject hardly matters ("Where do you live?" and a few other related questions repeatadly asked and answered, is a classic for this sort of thing). You'll actually notice that this questioning goes away after a while and comes back during the teenages if it was dealt with appropriately at younger age.
The first specs of true scientific interest come at the age of about 9. And then a trip to the library or the zoo or a science park and you sticking to personal and live explainations (that needant be all that scientifically detailed) of real phenomenon (weather, "Where do rivers come from?" "How can a car drive?", etc.) are all she needs. And don't worry - if you give her the right kind of education at the right time, she'll be a bright kid all by herself when her intellect and her strength for own reasoning fully awakes. Usually at the age of adolescence - as parents all around the world know very well. In fact, her reasoning will be far more healthy and her own if she doesn't get intellectually challenged to early in life. And it will be supported by a healthy own will, if she has the correct treatment as a child to look back on. There are other things children need to develop before they can develop a healthym intellectual reasoning. It's for that exact reason that the question "What would you like?" often is totally misplaced towards a toddler or small child.
And FYI: Yes, that is an essential conclusion of waldorf education. An educational methodology sometimes considered heretic by other educational trends. I've found it to be spot on. Make you own experiences, but do your and your sibling a favour and don't burry your kid in all kinds of media to early before you know what's really going on.
My 2 cents as a father of a 10 year old daughter.
Re:Observe your daugher carefully (Score:5, Informative)
Some kids develop faster, others slower. If you look more closely, it's usually even more of a mixture: some kids learn some things faster and other things slower. I still remember my first primary school teacher insisting that at age 5 I could not possibly have learnt to read yet, and not allowing me to have books beyond 'A is for Apple' when I wanted to have something more like 'Thomas the Tank Engine' (not so much more advanced, maybe, but there are complete sentences in the latter even if they're short). Three weeks of boredom seems like a lot when you're five (that being about how long it took her to understand that I could read simple sentences without sounding out the words).
(incidentally - sibling = (brother or sister), not child)
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The first specs of true scientific interest come at the age of about 9.
Then please explain to me, why at age 6, I was actively curious about my stepfather's Apple][+ computer, to the point that I got him to teach me BASIC? (admittedly, I only wrote stupid text adventure games consisting of "print", "input" and "goto" statements, but it's still logical flow, and shows scientific interest).
Kids are FAR smarter than you give them credit for - the only reason many children don't understand answers given to them is because they're not explained clearly enough - you need to REAL
Check out "A Cartoon History of the Universe" (Score:3, Interesting)
This combines basic cosmology (a bit dated now), some palentology, and mainly history or the world. One does need a pretty good vocabulary to handle it, but it's good.
Most of it originally came out as comic books (black & white only), but it's been rebound into some fairly thick books. (If you want, at the end of each section there's a bibliography of his sources, so you can check him for accuracy.)
hmm. (Score:2)
You do realize teaching children real science doesn't have to conflict with religion. Religious teaching are interpreted by faiths as more of a metaphorical truth vs. science truth. But if 10000 year or so ago you wanted to write about all the teachings that have been passed down how do you start with the beginning of the world. If man was made on the 6th day then how would they know the rest took 5. It is made for good story telling. I guess the point was w
Why so divisive? (Score:2)
Explaining that you adhere to the Big Bang theory as some kind of consequence of your atheism is a non sequitur. What does religious belief have to do with acceptance of a physical theory? Do you also explain electromagnetism to your daughter by pointing out that you are non-religious?
If anything this encourages the sort of illogical thinking which science tries to expose and eliminate. Religion and science are orthogonal to each other, as has been multiply observed for centuries by both scientists and re
Dragonfly TV (Score:2)
I recently held a series of events in my department looking at educational TV shows, and we included this show on the science TV day - I'd never heard of it, but we were all super-impressed. It's a "news show" type format, where they report on three or four sets of kids
The Universe on The History Channel (Score:3, Informative)
When in the car, we also listen to the Astronomy Cast [astronomycast.com] podcast. Dr. Pamela Gay [starstryder.com] does a great job of getting the science across in an informative and entertaining way without dumbing it down too much for us non professional physicists and astronomers.
Yes, a lot of it is over his head (heck, a lot of it is over my head), but he asks very intelligent questions about time, space, where everything came from, and where it's all headed, so I highly recommend those two sources.
We've tried watching reruns of Cosmos [wikipedia.org]. It was an absolutely groundbreaking and stunning show 28 years ago. But by today's standards, the graphics are weak and some of the science is dated. It's amazing how much we as a species have learned about the universe we live in in that short amount of time.
-S
Get The Mr. Wizard DVD Series "Watch Mr. Wizard" (Score:2)
They are all black and white and shot in one continuous show with no commercial breaks (it was live TV back then) but he explains all sorts of chemistry, physics, and everyday things in ways that kids can understand. The show is based on demonstrations that kids help out with as Mr. Wizard explains the concepts and reasons.
On DVD, it's really easy to wa
Re:Get The Mr. Wizard DVD Series "Watch Mr. Wizard (Score:2)
Connections (Score:2)
Lots Online. [google.com]
Also, Depending on their age. The western Tradition [learner.org]
Connections with James Burke (Score:4, Informative)
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C.
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No, that's exactly why it's *right* (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a good way to give the kid antibodies against superstition and mysticism, in other words. "No, we don't really understand what stuff is really made from. Nobody does... not yet. But people know a lot more about it than they did I was your age, and we can do a lot of cool stuff with the knowledge we have."
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To order in English (but European DVD zone, you'll need to rip and reburn), see http://www.disquesoffice.ch/ [disquesoffice.ch] .
More history than anything else, but there is a biology series and the history does start at the big bang.
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Yes, by all means, show her the scientific documentaries. But also let her read religious texts and go to church, as well as watch religious videos.
NO! The problem with doing this is that without very good guidance from her parents, she is almost certainly not mature enough to weed out "snake oil salesmen", of which many religions are far too rife with.
If you read some of my previous posts, you may find that I am quite staunchly atheist (I actually strongly believe religion to be a harmful mental delusion), but putting that aside, let's try a little thought experiment. Can you imagine a strongly Christian person accepting their daughter being expo