Good science shows for six year olds and adults?

November 22, 2021 9:05 AM

I'd like to find some shows about science to watch with the family, stuff that's accessible to a six year old but not specifically aimed at kids would be best. TV, Youtube, movie, whatever.

We've watched a lot of David Attenborough style nature documentaries, and still love them, but I'd like to find some stuff about other aspects of the natural world. Especially space, which 6 year old is very interested in, and human biology or the development of babies, which I'd like him to learn about. But any topic that is well presented I'd be interested in. I don't have anything against shows aimed at kids, so if you have really great recommendations for that I'd appreciate it, but I'm foremost interested in things we can watch together, and that are not filled with fast-paced jump cuts and animation.

posted by skewed to Education (20 answers total)

Response by poster: Oh, just to add, if you have a non-science documentary in mind about history or sociology or whatever that fits the bill, I'd also be glad to hear about it.
posted by skewed at 9:07 AM on November 22, 2021

Apollo 13 has a good, straightforward narrative structure.
posted by Melismata at 9:19 AM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Take a look at Physics Girl on YouTube
posted by tman99 at 10:32 AM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I really like Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
posted by delight at 10:46 AM on November 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Not a show, but the documentary Babies is pretty great.
posted by BlahLaLa at 10:47 AM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

In our house we have had "NOVA thursdays", where we get takeout and watch back episodes online, via our local PBS station website. Our 6 and 9 years olds like it.
posted by nickggully at 10:59 AM on November 22, 2021 [5 favorites]

James May has done some fun shows about toys, cars, etc-- I think a kid would like them too. NOT Top Gear, that's not kid friendly, but Man Lab and Toy Stories and I think he's done one about space.
posted by The otter lady at 11:45 AM on November 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

I really like Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The original Cosmos with Carl Sagan is pretty wonderful, too.

"How The Universe Works", narrated by Mike Rowe, still runs on Discovery Channel or one of its many other networks.
posted by briank at 11:59 AM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Deep Look is a great PBS series of shorts about little critters, good for ages 4-104.

I am a biologist and I love that I can learn a thing or two from it and so can kiddo.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:01 PM on November 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

I really enjoyed the new Cosmos miniseries too. But I'll suggest that you check some out in advance to make sure it's okay for your kid specifically. While watching the third season I could only watch one or two episodes at a time. The episode about Nikolai Vavilov and the Siege of Leningrad still haunts me. Other topics include anthropogenic extinction and other scientists who were persecuted or murdered. The show generally feels like it's aimed at younger audiences (while also being inclusive of adult), but I don't have a good sense of the lower bound and think it's probably different for every kid.
posted by esker at 12:16 PM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Operation Ouch [for e.eg.] with [twins] Dr Xand and Dr Chris van Tullekan. Hilarious, curious and informative. My 6 y.o. gkid tunes in on the regular.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:27 PM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

With our 6 year old, we watch a good amount of Nature from PBS. You can poke around and find the topics of interest. It has 40 seasons! I don’t know quite how much you can find easily but we tend to record it and also poke around on the app for our local station.

We also watch It’s OK to Be Smart, which is directed at kids but we adults enjoy too. It’s short, so it’s snackable. It IS fast paced and heavily produced though.
posted by vunder at 1:07 PM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

‘Once Upon A Time… Life’ is a french animated series (English dubbed) for kids about the body, featuring a load of anthropomorphic red blood cells who are on a perpetual sightseeing trip through major organs. There’s a load of white blood cells who show up like cops and control viruses and infections, but the main emphasis isn’t so much about goodies and baddies as getting to know about e.g. proteins and oxygenation.

I’ve found streams online of this series, but not of all the others made by the same production company.
posted by Joeruckus at 1:47 PM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Netflix has a show called “Brainchild” that’s a pretty decent look at various aspects of our brain/cognition/perception. My six year old neighbor kid seems to like it pretty well, and I found it interesting enough as an adult (I mean, I knew everything they explained, but the presentation was reasonably amusing and not agonizingly stupid or faux-juvenile).
posted by aramaic at 2:32 PM on November 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Cells at Work! - Wikipedia, modern Japanese manga/anime series right along the same lines as Once Upon A Time... Life. Second NOVA, maybe Secrets of the Dead.
posted by zengargoyle at 2:41 PM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

The Tim Hunkin Secret Life series is old but really fun.
posted by theora55 at 3:06 PM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

James Burke's Connections [youtube link to the first four episodes] is a fantastic child-friendly adult-fascinating series that shows how our culture, technology, history, and science come to be (and influence each other). The episodes generally start with some small innocuous thing in history, and follows various knock-on effects that cause their own knock-on effects, in a crazy path where you never know where it's going to lead next. The show is from the 80s so I've viewed as a child and adult and it still holds up (...except for the presenter's fashion sense and detective motif)

First episode is a bit different though, a sort of strained introduction that might be slower going and feels the most dated, but if you can get through that the rest of the 10 episodes (45 minutes each) are worth it.
posted by Cusp at 8:40 PM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'll add The Secret Life Of Machines which is like Burke's Connections but each episode traces the development of a single, everyday piece of technology.

It's also a bit of a proto-Mythbusters in that the hosts (Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod) have backgrounds in prototyping and practical special effects and episodes frequently have some sort of elaborate and embellished mockup of the technology in question or an over the top demonstration of a principal, like a fax machine which operates via paint rollers and semaphores or a hydraulic ram flipping a car or a giant sewing machine.

Episodes are available on Hunkin's Youtube Channel.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:26 AM on November 23, 2021

D'oh. I didn't notice Theora55 beat me to it. Sorry about the dupe.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:32 AM on November 23, 2021

Response by poster: Thanks to everyone for the excellent suggestions, I will go through and try them out over the next few weeks (although we've already seen many episodes of Deep Look, it's top notch).
posted by skewed at 10:34 AM on November 23, 2021