Building Big

Rating:
Summary: Brain-building entertainment
Review: This set of five videos by artist/architect David Macaulay provides many hours of insightful entertainment and a great introduction to science and technology on a practical level. Each themed film - Bridges, Skyscrapers, Tunnels Domes and Dams - provides an in-depth historical treatment of the particular structure, interesting stories and overviews from famous structures and basic scientific principles involved in each project.

The set features lots of great location shoots with David Macaulay narrating interesting stories and pointing out details of each site.

To give you an idea, "Tunnels" covers aqueducts and water-carrying tunnels of Ancient Rome, early canal and train tunnels of the 19th century (particularly in England and the U.S.), archaic and modern methods of tunnel digging (particularly under rivers), issues involving tunnel safety (both during the project and during use afterwards) with a special emphasis (in all areas) on the building of the Channel Tunnel in the 1990s between England and France. Each video also includes a "Building Small" segment and pamphlet so that families can tackle simple science projects at home that demonstrate principles of architecture.

Our family has really enjoyed these movies - from the four year old all the way up to Mom and Dad. The material is substantial, but easy to understand (particularly with the excellent use of computer graphics and artistic sketches).

My only caution would be that there were a few photos from an airplane crash into the Empire state Building in the 1940s that are a little graphic for young children. I was very excited to learn that these are coming out on DVD this fall.