Listen On: Exploration and Adventure!
Curated by: Rion Nakaya of The Kid Should See This.
Playlist runtime: 8 episodes, 2 hours 45 minutes (165 minutes) + 7 videos
Fierce Girls
Episode: “Nancy Bird-Walton: The girl who loved to fly”
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Radio Public
Length: 16 minutes
As Australia's youngest female pilot and the first Australian woman to be paid for the job, Nancy Bird-Walton was already making history, but her efforts to help save people's lives as an air ambulance pilot made her a hero. Learn about her pioneering passion, determination, and courage in this riveting Fierce Girls episode.
She Explores
Episode: “The Girls Behind ‘Granite Gals’”
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Radio Public
Length: 30 minutes
What started as a hobby for two energetic preschoolers and their mom has turned into a way of life in the mountains of New Hampshire. In this kid-focused episode of She Explores, we meet sisters Alex and Sage, now ages 15 and 13, who continue to challenge themselves with new goals within their hiking community. What have they learned about nature and about themselves? And what do they recommend for kids who want to start hiking?
Tumble
Episode: “The Weather Balloon, the Girl Scouts, and the Unicorn”
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Radio Public
Length: 12 minutes
3... 2... 1... launch! In this immersive episode of Tumble, we're invited to a weather balloon launch field trip in Austin, Texas. A local Brownie troop is learning about how scientists use balloons to study air quality, measuring, capturing, and transmitting data from every layer of our planet's atmosphere. Informative and evocative for kids and adults alike.
But Why?
Episode: “Are there underground cities?”
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Radio Public
Length: 15 minutes
Travel with your imagination to Montreal, Canada, Turkey's ancient city of Derinkuyu, and Coober Pedy, Australia. These locations all host different kinds of underground cities. Why did these communities build subterranean structures? Host Jane Lindholm explores these unique places to answer kid questions about life underground.
Undiscovered
Episode: “The Meteorite Hunter”
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Radio Public
Length: 32 minutes
Why do scientists travel to Antarctica for space rocks called meteorites? And how is an Antarctic expedition similar to the gold rush of the mid-1800s? Journey to Antarctica with Nina Lanza, geologist and laser ninja for the Curiosity Mars rover. She's hunting for meteorites for the first time in this riveting episode of Science Friday's Undiscovered podcast for older kids and adults. Did she and her team find a meteorite from Mars?
Bedtime History
Episode: “Nellie Bly - Around the World in 72 Days”
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Radio Public
Length: 5 minutes
Inspired by Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, American journalist Nellie Bly attempted to turn fiction into fact by traveling around the world alone. In 1889, the public was entranced by this attempt, especially by a woman traveling alone. Would she make it? Bedtime History tells the true tale.
The Past & The Curious
Episode: “Journeys! Horatio and Bud, John Ledyard, and more.”
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Radio Public
Length: 25 minutes
In 1903, Horatio Nelson Jackson made a bet that he could drive a touring car across the country and in the late 1700s, explorer and adventurer John Ledyard tried to circumnavigate the globe. Was Jackson able to make America's first road trip? And did Ledyard make it all the way around the world? (Spoiler: Catherine the Great was not keen on letting him cross Russia.) Go on two adventures in the past with The Past & The Curious.
HumaNature
Episode: “Things That Go Squeak in the Night”
Listen: Apple Podcasts | Radio Public
Length: 15 minutes
When Jennifer, Darold, and 10-year-old son Dante decided to sail around the world -- from San Francisco, through the Panama Canal, up the east coast and then across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and back -- they knew they'd experience a mix of challenging work, careful planning, and awesome adventures. But they weren't expecting to have company along part of the way. What are those sounds? Travel with them in this delightful episode of HumaNature, a podcast about "where humans and our habitat meet."
Bonus Videos:
How did Polynesian wayfinders navigate the Pacific Ocean?
How do you find your way across the ocean without modern navigational aids? Polynesian wayfinders did just this for thousands of years! Ocean currents, wave patterns, wind, clouds, the sky at night, and even the birds all provided them with essential navigation information. This animated TED Ed video explains.
Why GPS wouldn't work if we didn't know about relativity
Thank Albert Einstein for the mapping system in our cars and smartphones! In this semi-animated Fusion video, Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics Kip Thorne explains why GPS wouldn't work if we didn't know about relativity.
Dung beetles may stay low to the ground rolling fresh poop into balls for meals, but they use the sun, moon, and starlight to navigate their way. Learn more about this small South African beetle and its incredible internal GPS in this BBC Earth clip.
How did 12-year-old Lauren Rojas launch a 'catonaut' 93,625 feet into the sky, so high that her onboard camera recorded the curvature of the Earth? Check out her video chronicling her Hello Kitty figurine's trip on a DIY balloon kit towards space.
Animated Life: Pangea - The story of Alfred Wegener
In 1912, polar explorer and meteorologist Alfred Wegener proposed the concept of Pangea--the idea that the planet's continents were once connected. This paper puppet video by Flora Lichtman and Sharon Shattuck takes us up in a hot air balloon, across the tundra in a dog sled, and kite flying under the auroras all in the pursuit of science.
Onward: Searching for Life in Iceland's Frigid Fissures
"Iceland is a really great place for a scientist with an explorer's heart," explains biology researcher Jónína Ólafsdóttir. Watch as she dives into the country's underwater volcanic fissures to search for tiny arthropods.
Follow photographer and mountain climber Jimmy Chin up some staggeringly beautiful rock faces in Yosemite National Park. There he captures the art of modern day climbing and base jumping for National Geographic. Some incredible photos and time lapse footage.
