Shutdown Food for Thought: What are You Watching?

So this afternoon as I was scrolling through my Twitter feed and found a friend that posted this amazing video by Mark Rober, one of my favorite YouTube Channels.

I immediately stopped what I was doing, pulled the video up onto our TV at home and had my kids watch it.

In all of our scrambling to find content and ideas to share with our students and families, we've overlooked some really good content because it tends to get a negative connotation in our classroom focused minds. Our kids are out there streaming video and watching TV already, why not point them toward some awesome content to consume.
Here's a list of my favorites (by NO MEANS and exhaustive list, just my personal faves):

1. CNN Ten
   Very simple... News in 10 minutes. My daughter's Social Studies teacher has been starting class with 10 minutes of news this whole school year, so we've incorporated it into our COVID19 daily routine.
2. Mark Rober on YouTube
   In addition to the awesome, timely video, Mark's channel is chock full of kid-friendly, fun, entertaining, smart Science, Inventing, and Engineering videos created by a former NASA engineer.
3. Smarter Everyday on YouTube
   My absolute favorite YouTube channel of all time. Destin is a rocket scientist who, until recently, worked as a Missile Flight Test Engineer at Redstone Arsenal. His channel feeds my "learning happens through curiosity" mantra better than any other out there. If you haven't seen it already, his Backward Bike video is mind-bending.
4. Slo Mo Guys on YouTube
   Ok, so this one is a little bit more of a guilty pleasure, but still packed full of Science, Physics, and Curiosity. Some of the visuals they present on screen are completely hypnotizing.
5. TED
   For younger audiences you might want to do some pre-screening as some of the topics and content can occasionally be a little touchy, but I would struggle to find a better place to hear awesome, motivating, thought provoking outlooks from some of the world's most awesome thinkers. They also have a TED Ed section more suitable for kids, though.  Sir Ken's talk from 14 years ago still gives me goosebumps when I watch it and has inspired a lot of my outlook on Education.

Please feel free to share these (and maybe your favorites) with your students and their families. In addition to being educational, they're really entertaining, and I'm sure your students would love to have you send them to YouTube to watch some stuff. I would also encourage you to poke around these channels yourself over the next couple of weeks and be entertained as well. I'd be willing to bet you might just find something for you to incorporate into your classes in the future. Happy watching.