As part of our Science this year, my kids are learning about different types of animals. Up to this point, we have learned about meerkats, chimps, cheetahs and more. To add even more to our lessons, we love adding the Nature DVD series. On April 24, PBS will be releasing Nature: Animals With Cameras on DVD and Digital HD. This DVD takes you where no human cameraman can go to witness a new perspective of the animal kingdom.
Nature: Animals With Cameras
This program journeys into animals’ worlds using custom, state-of-the-art cameras worn by animals themselves. Capturing never-before-seen behavior, these animals cinematographers help expand human understanding to their habitats and solve mysteries that have eluded scientists until now.
Wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan and a team of pioneering animal behaviorist join forces to explore stories of animal lives “told” by the animals themselves. The cameras are custom-built by camera design expert Chris Watts to fit on the animals unobtrusively and to be easily removed at a later point. From this unique vantage point, you can watch a cheetah sprint across the savanna, plunge into the ocean with a seal or swing through the trees with a chimpanzee.
Episode 1:
The astonishing collar-camera footage reveals newborn Kalahari meerkats below ground for the first time, unveils the hunting skills of Magellanic penguins in Argentina, and follows the treetop progress of an orphaned chimp in Cameroon.
Episode 2:
The cameras capture young cheetahs learning to hunt in Namibia, show how fur seals on an Australian island evade the great white sharks offshore. and help solve a conflict between South African farmers and chacma baboons.
Episode 3:
We deep-dive with Chilean devil rays in the Azores, track brown bears’ diet in Turkey, and follow dogs protecting flocks of sheep from gray wolves in Southern France.
Our thoughts
This DVD was a wonderful addition to our already growing collection of PBS Nature. We use these DVDs as part of our homeschool, and my boys have learned so much.
In this particular DVD series, one can experience the world through the animals eyes. We’re using Apologia Zoology 3 in our homeschool, and were delighted to see many animals we’ve studied appear in this series. This made it a fun review as they watched the cheetahs, chimps and meerkats. My boys were in awe watching the meerkat interaction in their tunnels, and seeing the young for the first time. Even with the chimps, you felt like you were up in the forest canopy with them.
Be sure to head over to PBS Nature to check out full episodes, podcasts, filmmaker interviews, educational materials and more.
