With YouTube being a go-to website for many teens, it’s important for them to find some interesting channels that help them engage and learn new things. With hundreds of educational videos available to watch just at a click of a button, YouTube can be an excellent tool for learning, especially for secondary school students, who already spend plenty of time online. Here’s our top five educational YouTube channels sure to inspire and engage any secondary school student.
Ted Ed uses animation paired with incredible visuals to showcase lessons in every subject, for any age group. Within TED-Ed’s growing educational video library, there is a carefully curated collection of videos created with talented educators to make the lessons factual and help spread great ideas. Covering topics such as ‘Why is the Mona Lisa so famous?’ to ‘Why We Snore’, there’s plenty of thought-provoking topics for secondary school students to choose from. Each video is short, fun and engaging while still providing enough information for students to learn something interesting.
2. BBC Teach
BBC Teach is an excellent YouTube channel for students of all levels, especially as they enter secondary school. The channel has thousands of free high-quality, curriculum-based videos covering KS3 and KS4, meaning there’s content for years 7 to 11. The channel is easy to navigate with separate categories for each subject and key stage, not to mention plenty of videos covering English, maths, science, business studies, music, history and design technology! It’s an excellent educational resource sure to keep students busy for hours, with an added mental health series which is important for all teenagers to watch!
3. Veritasium
Veritasium is a hands-on science YouTube channel that creates videos on a huge variety of scientific principles, taking the time to show students exactly how they work, from gravitational waves and quantum mechanics to the Magnus Effect. In fact, it does a really excellent job of taking fairly complex concepts and making them easy to digest for students, meaning it’s perfect for the classroom too. If a secondary school student is passionate about science then this is the YouTube channel for them!
Khan Academy is a channel devoted to tutorial videos for any student to continue their learning. Covering a variety of concepts in STEM, arts and humanities, and even economics and finance, it’s an excellent educational channel, which teachers can use in the classroom too. In each YouTube video, the teacher explains the concept and provides examples, just like students would experience in real life! It’s a must use resource for all secondary school pupils.
5. Big Think
Big Think is a channel that creates videos to challenge the way students think about basic ideas, which is perfect for teens in secondary school who are looking for something a bit more stimulating. Even better, all of the videos are created by experts in their field to provide up-to-date and accurate information. With many topics for students to choose from, there’s sure to be something that will help kick start any discussion, or give them the chance to take a deeper dive into more controversial science topics.
