My first course in physics was my high school Project Physics corse. Project Physics was Harvard's post-Sputnik physics curriculum. The more prominent post-Sputnik physics curriculum was developed by the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC).
PSSC was a mathematically rigorous curriculum intended to foster a generation of scientists and engineers capable of competing with the Soviet Union's scientists and engineers. Project Physics took more of a humanities-based approach, steeped in history and personalities.
Through a bit of trickery that I shouldn't have been able to get away with, I managed to take Project Physics in 11th grade and PSSC Physics (at another campus) in 12th grade. (Physics had sunk its hooks into me early.)
I loved both courses, but preferred Project Physics. As I watched Ancient Skies, I was reminded of my fascination with the history of science that was a feature of Project Physics. And my Close Personal Friend® Phil Plait is featured throughout the series. Phil was a classmate at The University of Michigan (a proud employee of Parcheesi's Pizza while I worked at Wazoo Records), and a fellow traveler in the James Randi Educational Foundation's Amazing Meetings and the Amazing Adventure in the Galápagos.
With breath-taking CGI, beautiful landscape footage and some of the world's most important astronomical artifacts, Ancient Skies looks at the cosmos through the eyes of our ancestors, and our changing views of the cosmos throughout history.