Curiosity

n: desire to know

I have seen this meme circulating online and I think it is one of the funniest things ever. And it's also one of the truest.

As a stay-at-home of two quarantined kids, I feel like I answer questions all day long. Some are easy: How do you spell "drone"? Where is my toothbrush? What kind of chips are these? Others are a bit more complex: Why is it windy? Who invented robots? Why are there seeds on top of my cheeseburger bun?

If your kids ask a lot of questions, too, then I recommend subscribing to the Who Smarted? podcast, produced by Atomic Entertainment, which is available on all podcast platforms. It launched in October 2020 and was created by the award-winning team behind National Geographic's Brain Games and Netflix's Brainchild. They call it a kidcast, a podcast for kids, targeted for ages 6 to 10.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with the podcast's host, Jerry Kolber, who shared the origins of Who Smarted? and how he hopes it will help develop critical thinkers and confident learners.

"Each episode deals with a different topic around science, technology, engineering, natural history. Sometimes, we'll do a lifestyle topic or an important character from history," Kolber explained. "The idea is that we're using storytelling and fun and humor to get kids really excited and engaged in topics that they either already love and might learn a little bit more about, or that they might find out are more accessible and interesting than they thought."

"The idea is just really to provide kindling and spark for kids' natural curiosity," he added.

My 7-year-old son Noah and I have started listening to it, and it's something that we both really enjoy. As a mom, I appreciate the well-researched content, the high production value and the way it makes both of us think about ordinary things in new ways. My son likes the funny characters and voices, the trivia questions, and the fact that no topic is off-limits—he really loved the episode about boogers!

"Along the way, it's just become very clear to us that whether you're 2 years old, 20 years old, 80 years old, everybody likes learning to be fun," Kolber said. "We've all had some sort of version of school that we've struggled with, whether it's math or English or science or chemistry or whatever, and so our approach is to always make everything fun first, and we call it hiding the broccoli in the mac and cheese."

Who Smarted? offers new, scripted episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It's an ambitious project. Kolber says his team of 8 writers, 15 actors, 2 producers, 1 associate producer, a technical director and a sound designer spend between 30 and 40 hours to produce each 15-minute episode.

A separate team develops supplemental activities that are intended to complement the information presented in each episode. These activities usually include videos, websites and at-home projects. These can be accessed via the podcast's website, but parents can also subscribe to the three-times-per-week email newsletter.

The podcast and its supplemental activities have also found an important audience with teachers and parents engaged in distance learning.

"That's one of the reasons that we're doing it three times a week," Kolber said. "Because we know everybody is at home with kids doing distance learning, we figured the more topics we can cover, the faster, the more useful this podcast is going to be for parents and educators. We have heard from a lot of parents telling us thank you… We've also heard from teachers who are using it within their classrooms."

Kolber said the episodes about gravity and the immune system have been popular among teachers. His team, including the kids in their lives, compile lists of dozens of potential topics and the writers choose what people are excited about.

"Everything is an opportunity," he said.

Jerry Kolber: Our approach is to always make everything fun first, and we call it hiding the broccoli in the mac and cheese.

Kolber actually began his career in reality television, as a line producer for the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. When he pivoted to educational content, he said that a lot of what he learned in that role apply to producing and hosting Who Smarted?

"Making reality TV, you learn how to quickly tell a story, how to make people become interested in either loving or hating a character, you learn a lot about thinking on the fly," he said. "So, all of that was useful background for what I ultimately ended up doing."

All episodes of Who Smarted? as well as the supplemental resources are completely free. Expenses are covered by carefully vetted sponsors that align with the podcast's mission, such as Sitter City and KiwiCo.

"That was a choice we made with this project," Kolber said. "There are so many ways you can create revenue now." He said that the goal for both the podcast and the additional resources was for it to be available to anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Since it launched last fall, Who Smarted? continues to climb in the rankings on Apple Podcasts. At the time of our interview, Kolber said it was ranked at #3 in education for kids and #28 for kids overall.

Kolber encourages kids and parents to subscribe, ensuring that it can continue to put out new content that inspires everyone to keep learning.

"We want kids and parents to walk away from our episodes thinking 'Wow, I didn't know that!' and 'I want to learn more about that!'" Kolber said. "To us, that translates into creating a sense of curiosity and empowerment for kids, and adults, around feeling confident about looking into subjects that maybe they thought were too difficult to understand. And when your brain starts working that way, all of a sudden, you're not just getting smarter, you're getting better at everything."