A self-proclaimed YouTube junkie, opinion editor Anna Wendt brings you her favorite videos from the past week.
Don’t let the trolling and suspicious thumbnails fool you: YouTube is chockfull of intelligent and talented video makers ready to educate the world. Learn to cook, watch a quick beauty tutorial, brush up on world history or even see if it’s a good idea to microwave something. In the quest for knowledge, YouTube is one of the first places people of all ages should use. In honor of Education Week, I reviewed a few videos that will help you learn beyond this week’s classes and devotionals.
Crash Course
John and Hank Green cover history, literature and three branches of science in their Crash Course series. With videos clocking in at over 10 minutes long, they aren’t quick watches but once you watch one it will be difficult to not move on to more. What I love about Crash Course is how personal the videos are. The Greens want us to feel as passionate about these subjects as they are about them. So with a little humor and conversational style of teaching, the subjects you once despised in high school become, well, awesome.
John’s newest video attempts to enlighten us on the topic of growth and immigration in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century. Check out all the Crash Course videos at http://youtube.com/crashcourse.
Minute Physics
Stick-figure illustrations and soothing instrumental music go hand in hand with Minute Physics. With videos rarely longer than four minutes, it really is “minute” physics, with some other science thrown in as well. As someone who really never understood physics all that well, Henry Reich’s videos are a fascinating look into more complicated sciences. It’s not that I get bored with science, on the contrary, but the shortness of the videos definitely makes me more inclined to watch. Minute Physics answers a lot of questions you probably do have about the world and plenty of others you’ve never thought about.
The latest Minute Physics video takes on the expansion of the universe, which, by the way, isn’t actually expanding. Watch all of the Minute Physics lessons by visiting http://youtube.com/minutephysics.
