National Geographic · 2021 · Presenter: Will Smith
Darren Aronofsky and Will Smith teamed up in 2016 for National Geographic's One Strange Rock. For that series, US astronauts offered their perspective on the home planet while the storyline focused on the things that make life possible and enduring on Earth. The photography is stunning. The locations and people are captivating. And the astronauts hold the narrative together, along with Will Smith. I created questions sets for all the episodes. To me, the mix of earth science and biology made One Strange Rock a natural fit for the NGSS course, The Living Earth.
Sources on the Internet indicated that a second season had been green lit. But ... crickets ... then the pandemic. I had given up by the time promos appeared. Seems like I only knew of it weeks before Welcome to Earth premiered on Disney+.
In this series, Will Smith wants to be an explorer. A team of explorers take him to the ends of the earth and beyond. Aronofsky's cinematographers continue to shine. Most episodes clock in at 40 minutes or less (episode 1 is 44 minutes). The academic content is less dense than it was in One Strange Rock. The unexpected bonus is great representation, including a blind wilderness explorer and an agile amputee.
E P I S O D E S
On a remote island in the Pacific, Will Smith descends into the heart of an active volcano to investigate sounds beyond human hearing. Will discovers that everything on our planet creates its own unique sound—even if we can’t always hear it. With the help of technology, we can tune into the hidden sounds of our planet, from the pull of the moon on our mountains and cities to a silent rumble so deep and powerful, it can move the earth around it.
Shooting locations include Tanna in Vanuatu, the Mid-Atlantic Ocean, San Juan de la Vega in Mexico, Öran in Sweden, and The Dolomites in Italy. Explorers include Erik Weihenmayer, Jeffrey Johnson, Diva Amon, Cory Richards, and Michel André.
In a deep-water submersible, Will Smith descends 3,300 feet to the bottom of the ocean, where even fewer people have gone than outer space. Along the way down, Will and explorer Diva Amon investigate how color is used in the natural world. He discovers some animals creating their own vibrant, mind-bending light displays in pitch-black darkness. Rarely seen by humans, these displays are one of the most common forms of communication on the planet.
Shooting locations include the Bahamas, Mosquito Bay in Puerto Rico, Iguaçu Falls in Brazil, Wisconsin, and the Karst Plateau in Slovenia. Explorers include Diva Amon, Melissa Márquez, Cory Richard, Lidio Omar Martinéz, Jonathan Martin, George Steinmetz, and Alexander Gerst.
Thirty years ago, Will Smith was mesmerized by a photo of the incredible wildebeest migration across the Serengeti in a National Geographic magazine. Now he visits those same wildebeests and discovers an amazing survival strategy. Individually, wildebeests are animals with low intelligence, but when threatened, they group together and behave as if they have a single, super-intelligent brain. Will discovers that without this superpower, thousands of wildebeests could never survive the 150-mile gauntlet of the most blood-thirsty predators on the planet.
Shooting locations include the Serengeti and the Mara River in Tanzania, Nepal, Netherlands, Solomon Islands, and a backyard somewhere. Explorers include George Steinmetz, Remtulla Nassary, Aldo Kane, Cory Richards, and Jill Kelly.
On the trail of tiger sharks in the Pacific, Will explores the power of smell. For humans, the sense of smell triggers deep memories and emotions, but it has an even more vital function in the animal world. Will discovers that scents link ecosystems around the world and are so powerful for some animals that they can mean the difference between life and death.
Shooting locations include the Great Barrier Reef, Romania, Raine Island in Australia, Alaska, and Lombok in Indonesia. Explorers include Cristina Mittermeier, Falen Passi, Johnson Chippendale, Katherine Robertson, and Erik Weihenmayer.
Will explores the Namibia Desert, where both the landscape and time seem to have stood still for over 50 million years. Will discovers that humans can only see a small sliver of what’s moving around us because everything on the planet is happening either too fast or too slow for us to perceive. With the help of Albert Lin’s incredible technology, Will finds everything is on the move: life, the earth and even the cosmos.
Shooting locations include The Namib Desert in Namibia, the English Channel, Norway, and Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. Explorers include Albert Lin, Diva Amon, Dwayne Fields, and Jheison Huerta.
For Will’s final journey, an ultimate challenge. He and polar explorer Dwayne Fields are dropped by helicopter in the middle of an Icelandic glacier. Will’s mission is to draw on everything he’s learned from the five previous expeditions about what it means to be an explorer to overcome his fear and anxieties of the wilderness. By learning how to read nature’s clues, Will slowly gains an understanding of the environment around him, allowing him to embrace his fear and take the reins on a powerful and unpredictable stretch of white-water rapids. Will discovers that uncertainty and confusion are not obstacles to exploration but rather a vital part of every explorer’s experience when throwing themselves into the unknown.
Shooting locations include Iceland, Lençois Maranhenses in Brazil, and the Baa Atoll in the Maldives. Explorers include Dwayne Fields, Diva Amon, and Sidey Ahmed.
Question sets are available for individual episodes. The complete series bundle is available at a discounted price. Student documents and answer keys are provided as Google Docs on Google Drive.
No comments:
Post a Comment