Top 5 YouTube edutainment channels

-Riya Ganguly

How many times have you chided your children for wasting time on YouTube? Considering the current pandemic situation with outdoor activities and games rendered unfeasible and unsafe, children have very few avenues of relaxing and end up spending hours on YouTube. But who says YouTube is a waste of time?

With the growth and rising popularity of the edutainment genre, YouTube videos can now be used as learning resources, using exciting graphics and interactive modes of communication to make learning an exciting experience.

Children respond to fun and creative storytelling, and YouTube edutainment channels use this to their advantage, employing fascinating illustrations, interactive visuals and humour, thereby sparking children’s interests and developing the curiosity to learn new things. Here are the Top 5 YouTube edutainment channels:

1. TED-Ed

With 14.1 million subscribers and over 2 billion views, the TED-Ed YouTube channel was launched by TED conferences LLC as a part of its youth and education initiative. The channel comprises videos playlists on different subjects such as coding, contemporary and classical poems and mathematics. At 23 million views, Questions No One Knows the Answers to (Full Version) narrated by TED Curator Chris Anderson is the currently the highest viewed TED-Ed video. 

2. Khan Academy

With 6.69 million subscribers and over 1.7 billion views, Khan Academy is a non-profit educational channel created by Sal Khan with videos and playlists on a large variety of subjects ranging from school-level concepts to SAT subject test practices. At 9.8 million views, You Can Learn Anything (30 sec) is the most viewed video of the channel. 

3. Crash Course

At 12.4 million subscribers and 1.4 billion views, Crash Course is an educational YouTube channel created by the Green brothers with videos and playlists on subjects ranging from film criticism to black American history. Praised for its interactive cartoonification of educational concepts and use of humour, The Agricultural Revolution: Crash Course World History #1 is the most-viewed video of the channel with 13 million views.

4. AsapScience

At 9.69 million subscribers and 1.4 billion views, Asap Science is a YouTube channel created and hosted by Mitch Moffit and Gregory Brown, probing scientific concepts using whiteboard drawings with a voice-over narration. The channel is popular for its unique ways of simplifying Science such as using songs and parodies to remember the periodic table and the value of Pi. At 62 million views, Do You Hear “Yanny” or “Laurel”? (SOLVED with SCIENCE) is the most-viewed video of the channel, using the famous audio illusion to discuss concepts of sound.

5. VSauce

At 17 million subscribers and 2.09 billion views, VSauce is a popular YouTube education channel created by Michael David Stevens using its videos to teach interesting scientific concepts and probe viewers’ curiosities with unique philosophical questions. At 34 million views, What If Everyone JUMPED At Once? is the channel’s most viewed video.

Also read: Google India introduces YouTube Learning Destination