I've been trying to remember my experience in science classes as elementary school, and find ways to make them better. The thing that is most vivid to me is watching Bill Nye the Science guy, we watched them from like 3rd grade all the way up to high school physics. Bill Nye is on TV occasionally but is getting to be out of date so I looked for some science shows that are current.
Kids Shows
Dinosaur Train-PBS
Go Diego Go-Nick
Jungle Junction-Disney
Sid the Science Kid-PBS
Animal shows (Jack Hannah, Jeff Corwin, more)
For older elementary students there are a lot of shows on the National Geographic, Discovery, and Animal Planet channels. I have never heard of any of these kid shows and I desperately don't want to become that teacher that shows the old boring movies/TV clips. I have seen the students in my clinical class become really excited to watch a video and then be bored out of their minds, if we can find tv shows that will keep the excitement up and have them teach students important scientific ideas watching TV can have a usage in class. Although they should still only be used very sparingly.
I like the idea of incorporating videos into science lessons, but they need to beneficial educationally as well as entertaining. Also, I think that if teachers are going to use videos in the classroom they shouldn't be used to fill time but should have educational purposes and they should be watched by the teacher prior to being presented in class. Also, Go Diego Go is a show that teaches mostly the Spanish language with an animal rescue theme that helps really young children learn about animals. I think this show is more appropriate for preschoolers. I think the National Geographic and Discovery Channel features are excellent for use in the classroom because they are extremely interesting and informational.
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