Pixar in a box: New on Khan Academy

This week Khan Academy launched a new project that will absolutely engage your math, science and media teachers, and young filmmakers as well.

Pixar In A Box is an new online curriculum that

analyzes how the studio fuses art, tech, science, engineering, and math to develop top-shelf animated cinema. Created with middle and high school students in mind but available to everyone, Pixar In A Box’s interactive exercises, in-depth video lessons, and hands-on activities are an informative addition to Khan Academy’s extensive educational resources.

The curriculum spans the pipeline of the production process.

As might be expected, any Pixar project would reach well beyond the mortal powers of your typical explanation video. These do. They include the voices (and personal stories) of authentic Pixar people working in authentic workplaces on movies that already form the mythic storyboards of our kiddos’ lives and dreams, and often, their career aspirations.

Teachers will appreciate the fully sequenced, appropriately chunked, engaging curricula and activities that animate abstract mathematical and scientific concepts and make them vibrantly and authentically meaningful.

Librarians could easily unglue and embed relevant content into web resources across the school program.  Or consider turning this curriculum into an after-school or lunchtime informal STEAM experience.

Here’s a sample video introducing the importance of math, and the unit on parabolic arcs, in creating the landscape for Brave.

And here’s the curriculum outline:

• Introduction
• Learner’s guide 
• Educator’s guide

• Modeling grass with parabolas
• Calculating parabolas

• Modeling with subdivision surfaces
• Mathematics of subdivision

• Introduction to animation curves
• Mathematics of animation curves

• Building crowds
• Counting crowds

• Geometric transformations
• Mathematics of rotation

Rendering: Explore how pixels are painted digitally using algebra.

• Rendering 101
• Mathematics of Rendering

 Thanks to Larry Ferlazzo for this lead!

Filed under: art, creativity, digital literacy, math, media literacy, storytelling, transmedia storytelling, video, visual literacy