Welcome to Earth School: TED-ED's Logan Smalley

Most of our episodes are dedicated to people who are saving the planet today, but in this edition of CONTEXT we dig into how we're preparing the next generation to save the planet tomorrow. The team at TED-ED, led by founding director Logan Smalley, and  has long been in the business of making complex issues accessible, entertaining and actionable for students of all ages. The TED-ED team transforms the expert videos on the TED  platform into animated versions geared toward a younger audience- and then they dub those videos in a variety of language so students from all over the world can participate in the panacea of learning. 

They've recently expanded their offerings to include a curated series of videos  specifically designed for teaching about our home, called Earth School. Before digging into the episode we suggest you take a spin through the classroom, check it out here: https://ed.ted.com/earth-school The  program is composed of 6 weeks, each of which has a particular theme, like the Nature of Society, or the Nature of Change. Each week they've selected five videos on that particular topic, and provided supporting material like follow up lessons, discussion board, and teaching tools. As Logan says in the episode, the idea is to not just provide the teachers with a dimensional tool (video), but a three dimensional platform that goes deeper into subject allowing for further research, segmenting the students into appropriate teaching groups, and much, much more. 

But wait, there's more! The team at TED has created a somewhat cryptic (stay tuned, it's evolving!) project called COUNTDOWN. Here's the website: https://countdown.ted.com/. The overarching message is that we have a limited time to take our global carbon emissions down to zero, and it's going to take all of us to get there.  The project is still undergoing some tweaks (responding to the Corona world), so it's not exactly what the specific outcome will be, but given their previous work it's absolutely worth getting involved and paying attention. 

As the husband of a teacher this one hit home for me. Thanks for listening in, and thanks to Logan and the TED team for the work they're doing- bravo!