Like a lot of people on here, I imagine, Mythbusters contributed a lot to my interest in STEM in my formative years. For a while I considered it my favorite show on television. The show ended in 2016, and I still watch reruns whenever I can catch them. The Science Channel tried to reboot the show with new hosts, but the reboot always felt forced and never truly captured the entertainment of the original IMO. When Adam Savage came back with a new show “Mythbusters Jr” also on the Science Channel, I was similarly skeptical that it would be another dud, and that kept me from watching it for a while. But just today I decided to watch a few episodes, and I have to say that I’m very pleasantly surprised.
The premise of the show is that Adam works with six 12-15 year old kids with some background in STEM solving myths like the original show. They did a great job of showing kids doing science: hypothesizing, designing, building, programming, testing, etc. The cast of kids is truly representative, with an even gender split and students of many races and backgrounds, which is definitely an improvement on a lot of other STEM-related shows that are primarily male and white. And crucially they did it all without sacrificing on the fun and entertainment value of the original show. To a degree, watching this reminded me of the excitement I see from FIRST students learning about STEM in an engaging and entertaining way. I’d highly recommend the show for anyone who liked the original and enjoys seeing kids engaged in learning and teaching STEM.