Wowsabout!

PBS Kids and The Jim Henson Company have collaborated on a kids special called Wowsabout! that focuses on the experience of wonder.

Wowsabout is rooted in a rich curriculum developed by Dr. Dacher Keltner, one of the world’s foremost emotion scientists and author of “AWE: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life.” The special, shot on location in breathtaking Sequoia National Park, aims to help children recognize and name the feeling of awe by experiencing moments of wonder alongside Roxy and Ronald. Through nature, music, storytelling, and friendship, children learn how awe sparks curiosity, creativity, kindness, and a desire to explore and care for the world around them. The special inspires children to notice awe in everyday moments and begin their own “Wowsabouts,” fostering connection to others and to the planet.

The full episode of Wowsabout! is available to watch on YouTube and at PBS Kids.

Dr. Keltner, one of the advisors on Pixar’s Inside Out, outlines “eight categories of experience that set the stage for awe” in his 2023 book on the topic. A summary of the “eight wonders” from a Psychology Today article:

1. Moral beauty. We can feel awe when we observe other people engage in acts of courage or kindness. Moral beauty also describes the experience of seeing someone overcome obstacles, or watching people with rare talents.

2. Collective effervescence. This occurs when a gathering of people is attending to the same thing, moving together, and converging on similar emotional experience. Think attending a concert, dancing in a crowd, or attending or playing in a basketball game.

3. Nature. When we are outside, we can find awe in the sights, sounds, and smells of nature.

4. Music. Both making music and listening to music attune us to what is happening outside of ourselves and connect us with others and a broader expanse of time and place.

5. Visual design. This includes visual art, movies, geometric patterns, even the elegance and complexity of machines.

6. Spirituality and religion. As personally defined by each of us, this might include connection with the Divine, or experiences that transcend our self or understanding.

7. Life and death. We can experience awe when we witness or are connected to birth and death.

8. Epiphany. This includes the experience of uniting facts, beliefs, values, intuitions, and images into a new system of understanding.

Reading through the list, it occurs to me that many of the things I post about on KDO touch on one of more of these elements of awe and wonder. (thx, caroline)

• Dacher Keltner
• Jim Henson
• PBS
• TV
• video