Tuesday 12 January 2021

BBC Two's much praised lockdown educational output begins....with Greta


I was probably too sour the other day, and may have reacted in a knee-jerk fashion. (Or maybe not).

And it may very well be a wonderful thing that the BBC is broadcasting hours of extra educational programmes on CBeebies and BBC Two each day because of lockdown. (Or maybe not).

But...

...those tuning into BBC Two's Bitesize programmes today for secondary school children will have found the following at the start of the channel's two-hour educational package:

Since it's Science Week here at Bitesize Daily, our Big Read is Devika Jina's book, The Extraordinary Life of Greta Thunberg. 
Yesterday, we read about Greta's early childhood and how she first learned about climate change watching documentaries at school. 
In this extract, we get more insight into Greta's personal life and what makes her extraordinary. 

This isn't a parody. 

The sciences cover such a broad range, as does the science curriculum. Trust someone at BBC Two to place their favourite climate activist Greta front-and-centre of their opening week of educational programmes! 

And there was Professor Brian Cox to follow. (Things well and truly could only get better - it was his OK-ish The Planets series.)

I rather like Prof Cox, but he's long been the present BBC's idea of a 'hip-and-down-with-the-youngsters' scientist - despite being 52. He holds all the right views too.

You can just imagine the thinking at BBC Two as to what to choose for Week 1: 

(a) "Got to put out something about science. What can we put out? Something about climate change maybe? Ah, there's a book out about Greta Thunberg's extraordinary life. Good! Is there something on BBC Bitesize that? Yes. Should we put that out? Yes, that's a good idea. Let's do it." 

(b) "What else? Something from Brian Cox?".

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