it's all about teaming up

Image from USCG

Say what you want, it's all about teaming up and playing, for the sake of survival first, and then efficiency. Life is the essence and result of escaping dangers, cooperation, trial and error, specialisation, and bitter competition.
How it all came into being is a story of adaptation, niches, opportunities. And us, with all our preoccupations for decorations, fashion, make-up, faster cars, silicon implants, are supposedly the end result? Hardly believable. If conscience has evolved to make sense out of it all, evolution must somehow have a weird sense of humour.

A couple of interesting documentaries:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/david-attenboroughs-first-life/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/earth-making-of-a-planet/

redefining reality

Beau Lotto's illusions and his street science somehow redefine what is reality, and how being part of the ecology of the systems we observe, we can't really separate ourselves from them. These are powerful examples of how much our past shapes our perceptions and therefore our judgments. I'm thinking of using some of these examples for either the lesson on Situation Awareness or a new lesson on Cultural influences.

loving documentaries

l'Abisso

Short of doing things myself, the next best option is learning and becoming smarter about the world. Other than TED, and some online courses, the best way to learn about the world for somebody as visual as myself are documentaries. Amongst them the ones I find consistently good are the BBC documentaries. And amongst those, the ones presented by professionals who know the topic seem the best.
I thrive for knowledge and understanding, and I'm always looking for new sources of good information. I'm wondering what would be of me if the internet wouldn't exist ...

Some of my sources:

http://documentaryheaven.com/
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/
http://science-documentaries.com/
http://www.richannel.org/
http://watchdocumentary.com/
http://www.documentary-film.net/
http://www.documentary-log.com/
http://www.online-documentaries.org/
http://freeonlinedocumentary.com/
http://www.documentary24.com/
http://www.documentarywire.com/