Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids

Helium, carbon, and what Little Red Riding Hood has to do with malnutrition in Africa.

We love infographics. We love animation. And we’re all for engaging kids in creative education. So today we’re looking at three educational infoviz animations that shed light on complex or important issues in beautifully art-directed ways that make little eyes widen and little brains broaden.

HOW TO FEED THE WORLD

Directed by Denis van Waerebeke, How To Feed The World is a brilliant animated short film made for the Bon appétit exhibition in Paris science museum. Though aimed at helping kids ages 9 to 14 understand the science behind eating and why nutrition is important, the film’s slick animation style and seamless visual narrative make it as educational for kids as it is for budding designers, looking to master the art of using design as a storytelling medium.

Bonus points for the obligatory British voiceover, always a delightful upgrade.

THE STORY OF STUFF

Though not necessarily aimed at kids alone, Annie Leonard’s brilliant The Story of Stuff — which we reviewed extensively some time ago — condenses the entire materials economy into 20 minutes of wonderfully illustrated and engagingly narrated storytelling that makes you never look at stuff the same way again.

The Story of Stuff recently got a book deal, further attesting to its all-around excellence. We highly recommend it.

THE ELEMENTS

A few months ago, we reviewed They Might Be Giants’ fantastic Here Comes Science 2-disc CD/DVD album aimed at the K-5 set, a brilliant intersection of entertainment and creative education. One of the highlights on it is this wonderful animated journey across the periodic table, a true exercise in art-meets-science.

The entire album is well worth the two Starbucks lattes that it costs, both as a tool of inspired education for kids and a timeless music treat for indie rock fans of all ages.

BONUS

Though certainly not educational, and likely not aimed at kids, this fantastic animation — which we featured exactly a year ago today — offers a brilliant infographic reinterpretation of the Brothers Grimm children’s classic The Little Red Riding Hood, inspired by Röyksopp’s Remind Me.

We’d love to see this as a series, celebrating the cross-pollination of some of our favorite facets of creative culture — animation, data visualization, and classic children’s literature — with quirk, humor and superb art direction.

Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

Gift Guide: Kids & The Eternal Kid From thinking to tinkering, by way of color, music and photography. This is Part 2 of the three-part Brain Pickings holiday gift guide. Today, we’re looking at goods and goodies for kids of all ages and the eternal kid in everyone. HERE COMES SCIENCE Indie rock icons They Might Be...
Art Meets Science: TMBG’s Creative Education They Might Be Giants' latest children-themed video album, Here Comes Science, is a brilliant testament to the power of creativity in education....
Analog Infoviz: Hand- Painted Visualizations Ward Shelley's wonderful hand-painted visualizations in oil offer a dose of candor, humor and delightful one-point-ohness....
The History of Jazz, Animated in Shadow Art A brilliant animated short film from SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, outlining the history of jazz in a virtual shadow art museum....
The Mother of All Music Visualization What global warming has to do with the formative role of music in 20th-century culture. MUSIC THE DIRECTOR Two of our most popular recent stories, the fan-made Goldfrapp music video and the brilliant new album by David Byrne and Brian Eno, meet today in the mother of all music visualization....

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 5:30 am in culture, design, film, health, music, science, sustainability and was tagged animation, books, cool, data visualization, design, education, food, music, science, sustainability, video.

3 brilliant infoviz animations aimed at kids – data visualization meets film meets education http://is.gd/aOcei

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

brainpicker on March 19th, 2010 at 6:45 am

RT @brainpicker 3 brilliant infoviz animations aimed at kids – data visualization meets film meets education http://is.gd/aOcei

Gulfi on March 19th, 2010 at 6:46 am

RT @brainpicker: 3 brilliant infoviz animations aimed at kids – data visualization meets film meets education http://is.gd/aOcei

xmoisant on March 19th, 2010 at 6:55 am

andywhittle on March 19th, 2010 at 6:55 am

jfolkmann on March 19th, 2010 at 6:57 am

val_green on March 19th, 2010 at 7:06 am

3 brilliant infoviz animations aimed at kids – data visualization meets film meets education http://is.gd/aOcei (cont) http://tl.gd/i771b

ThomasJeromeNew on March 19th, 2010 at 7:10 am

RT @brainpicker

samdida on March 19th, 2010 at 8:22 am

If you missed it: Data visualization + film + education = 3 brilliant infoviz animations aimed at kids http://is.gd/aOcei

brainpicker on March 19th, 2010 at 1:31 pm

RT @brainpicker: If you missed it: Data visualization + film + education = 3 brilliant infoviz animations aimed at kids http://is.gd/aOcei

amacdowell on March 19th, 2010 at 1:44 pm

RT @amacdowell RT @brainpicker If u missed it-Data visualization +film + educ=3 brilliant infoviz animations aimed @ kids http://is.gd/aOcei

RebeccaCarelli on March 19th, 2010 at 1:47 pm

nabilbeit on March 19th, 2010 at 1:49 pm

yuletide on March 19th, 2010 at 2:22 pm

S_Mayer on March 19th, 2010 at 11:41 pm

Information, animation, and creative educational awesomeness converge in these eye-tickling vids. http://bit.ly/bBRMcP

jorfanon on March 20th, 2010 at 5:33 pm

Latest UTA Auctions http://goo.gl/fb/bicg #utmash

__UT on March 20th, 2010 at 6:39 pm

shibl on March 21st, 2010 at 11:00 am

RT @BrainPickings: Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids: Helium, carbon, and what Little Red Riding Hood has to do wit… http://bit.ly/awQhqo

S_Mayer on March 22nd, 2010 at 12:55 am

Education viz for kids, nice – http://bit.ly/ayxNaJ

cjefford on March 22nd, 2010 at 2:54 am

sinceramente, magnifico. ayuda a la didáctica. Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids http://ow.ly/1ppiF (via Brain Pickings)

dreampicker on March 22nd, 2010 at 9:05 am

Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids http://is.gd/aTg7S

LenKendall on March 22nd, 2010 at 11:57 am

Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids http://bit.ly/bYtDYs

hoffer7 on March 22nd, 2010 at 12:11 pm

RT @LenKendall: Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids http://is.gd/aTg7S

johnemerritt on March 22nd, 2010 at 12:26 pm

Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids http://ow.ly/1rXsv (Loved the Story of Stuff video)

wap_org on March 29th, 2010 at 8:35 am

Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids http://shar.es/m2cp8

neighbourh00d on April 3rd, 2010 at 8:24 am

Infoviz Education: Animated Visualizations for Kids http://bit.ly/bJt6cX

dgende on April 4th, 2010 at 6:28 am

Hi !

I’m the author of “How to feed the world ?”
and I like your blog alot.
I do love the “Brain pickings” idea.

Curiously my own blog uses quite the same visual idea. Its called “L’ameublement du cerveau” (furniture for the brain) You can read it (in French) here :

http://dvanw.blogspot.com

Denis van Waerebeke on April 5th, 2010 at 1:49 pm

@Denis:

Thanks so much for stopping by. Fantastic work with How To Feed The World. Looking forward to Google-Translating my way through your blog. Cheers.

Maria Popova on April 5th, 2010 at 1:58 pm

While I love The Story of Stuff, I don’t think that 20-minute video is “kid-appropriate.” I wouldn’t burden anyone younger than 14 with that kind of soul-crushing (albeit true) negativity, not to mention that some of the concepts are a bit too complex for kids, even though the visuals could be helpful. It goes on for 19 straight minutes of pessimism before getting to the “good part” about it (i.e. that grown-ups are helping). That video alone doesn’t show kids how to help, and although I think Annie Leonard is amazing and has great intentions with the video, I can’t believe she says something like “recycling will never be enough.” That is a terrible message to impressionable kids, which I know is just her way of inspiring action.

I’d caution parents to watch the whole video before taking the nonchalant recommendation of scores of retweeters.

Alex on June 30th, 2010 at 7:57 pm

[...] spot for infographic storytelling — from a data-driven take on The Little Red Riding Hood to animated infoviz for kids to an infographic breakdown of web history. We’ve recently discovered a wonderful Australian [...]

The Beast File: Infographic Storytelling | Brain Pickings on August 25th, 2010 at 5:20 am

Help

Connect