With 1.5 billion children out of school right now, due to the coronavirus pandemic, many parents are scrambling to figure out how to continue their education. Some schools have provided guidance, but it’s nowhere near what children usually receive in classrooms. And the Internet is so full of resources that it can be daunting to know where to start.
Enter Earth School, an interesting collaboration between TED-Ed and the United Nations’ Environment Programme with the aim of encouraging young people to connect with nature and their environment.
Designed together with experts from National Geographic, WWF, and the BBC, the initiative consists of a brand new online science curriculum of sorts comprising 30 short animated videos. The videos are divided into six weeks’ worth of programming, each with a theme: The Nature of Our Stuff, The Nature of Society, The Nature of Nature, The Nature of Change, The Nature of Individual Action, and The Nature of Collective Action.
The learning experience covers a wide span of interesting and relevant topics, such as entomophagy (why we should eat insects), what’s in a smartphone, how composting works, the issue with plastics, the nature of transport, and the clothes we wear, among many others.
Starting on Earth Day, April 22, one video has been released daily, and this will continue until World Environment Day on June 5. All videos posted remain available online, so you could start the 30-day cycle at any point, or just dip in and watch random ones anytime.
