Berkeley Talks: Why kids need awe — and how puppets can help
Creators of the new Jim Henson Company puppet special “Wowsabout” join researchers from UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center to discuss the complex psychology of wonder as a powerful tool for early childhood resilience.
Courtesy of The Jim Henson Company
June 12, 2026
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As Halle Stanford drove through Topanga Canyon in Southern California, with Dolly Parton blasting from the car speakers, she was struck by a moment of inspiration.
“I had this vision of a little hedgehog on the side of the road in her little pink hiking boots, with her guitar in her bag, out to find the wows of the world,” says Stanford, an independent television producer.
A few days later, she came across research from UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center showing that awe — the emotion we experience when we encounter vast mysteries that we don’t understand — inspires us to care for the planet and one another. “And I was like, ‘Bingo, that’s it.’”
That connection became the basis for Wowsabout, a new Jim Henson Company puppet preschool special on PBS designed to bring awe to young audiences. Created by Stanford and puppeteer Dorien Davies, the 30-minute special maps the journeys of Roxy, a free-spirited hedgehog, and Ronald, a fastidious city pig, as they explore Sequoia National Park.
Together, they experience moments of awe, like when standing beneath towering Sequoias and watching migrating California tortoiseshell butterflies. And they meet others along the way, including Pekan, a puppet representing the endangered southern Sierra Nevada fisher who guides them to see historic pictographs carved into the park’s rock formations.
Awe isn’t a luxury emotion, but an evolutionary necessity, says Dacher Keltner, a Berkeley psychology professor and the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center. “It makes kids kinder, it makes kids more creative. … Awe really helps kids stay curious, and be in love with big ideas.”
Keltner has studied the science of awe for more than a decade, and in 2023 published the book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. He served as a science consultant and co-executive producer for Wowsabout.
In this episode of Berkeley Talks, Stanford and Davies join Keltner and others from the Greater Good Science Center — education director Vicki Zakrzewski and parenting program director Maryam Abdullah — in a talk moderated by Sarah Bracken, education outreach and school partnerships manager at the center. The group discusses the logistical hurdles of translating wonder into film and why cultivating everyday curiosity has become an essential antidote to modern social disconnection.
The conversation took place on May 13 and was hosted by the Greater Good Science Center.
Watch a video of the panel discussion. (The screening of Wowsabout was removed from the recording for copyright reasons.)
Audiences can watch the full Wowsabout special for free on PBS Kids.
(Music: “No One Is Perfect” by HoliznaCC0)
Anne Brice (intro): This is Berkeley Talks, a UC Berkeley News podcast from Strategic Communications at Berkeley. You can follow Berkeley Talks wherever you listen to your podcasts. We’re also on YouTube @BerkeleyNews. New episodes come out every other Friday. You can find all of our podcast episodes, with transcripts and photos, on UC Berkeley News at news.berkeley.edu/podcasts.
(Music fades out)
Sarah Bracken: My name is Sarah Bracken. I’m the Education Outreach and Partnerships manager at the Greater Good Science Center. And the Greater Good Science Center is part of University of California, Berkeley. We study the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teach skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society, what we call the Science of a Meaningful Life. Greater Good publishes Greater Good Magazine, hosts the award-winning Science of Happiness podcast, offers online courses and tools, and convenes events that bring cutting-edge research to practitioners, educators, parents, and the general public.
Joining me today are some amazing panelists. If you could wave hello when I say your name. We have Halle Stanford, and Dorian Davies, the masterminds behind the show we’re about to watch together. And then from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, we have Dacher Keltner, Vicki Zakrzewski and Maryam Abdullah. Thank you so much for being here.
We also have, working behind the scenes to keep everything running smoothly, two of my colleagues at Greater Good, Emily and Sage. Emily is in the Zoom with us, so she’ll be sharing your questions along the way, and Sage is over on live on YouTube, so if there are any issues over there, you can talk to Sage in the chat and she can help you out.
All right. I think without further ado, we are going to watch Wowsabout together. And before it starts, I want to invite you to think about the power of this shared experience. We are strangers together, and we are not necessarily friends or family members, and yet here we are creating community around awe. How cool is that? After today, we can say that we watched a show with people across the world, and then talked about awe together. I have those Roxy goosebumps already thinking about it. So I’m so excited. Thank you very much for being here. And Emily, take it away.
Well, oh my goodness. Thank you so much for sharing that experience with me. Congratulations, Halle and Dorian. That was fabulous. I just want to share some of the love coming from the chat. People are saying, “Roxy is so relatable. Cutest puppets ever. Smiling from ear to ear right now.” Someone has on their PBS socks, and so they’re saying, “Yay.” For PBS, which I love. One of the comments I wanted to share before I invite our audience to share something in the chat is this, it says, “I love thinking about how experiencing awe with someone so different from you encourages a pause in both, and a moment of connection.” Love this. So thank you very, very much for this show. It is not only fun. It’s inspiring. It’s teaching us things.
Thank you so much.
Let me invite our audience members now in the chat to share something that brings you awe. Maybe it brought you awe as a child. Maybe it brings you awe right now. Let’s just get a sense as our panelists get a minute to get ready to answer some questions, what brings you awe? Let’s share that in the chat now. I’m curious what you guys would say. Can you just shout one thing out while people are typing, Halle, Dorian, Maryam, Vicki and Dacher?
Halle Stanford: I was thinking how I’m in awe that we are able to connect through Zoom to all of these people all over the world sharing this Wowsabout experience.
Sarah Bracken: Thanks. Anybody can jump in.
Dorian Davies: I am in awe of my community, my little community and my neighborhood, and how we all kind of show up for each other, and our buy nothing groups, and our deep friendships where we show up for each other when we’re sick, and childcare, and we’re really fortunate.
Sarah Bracken: Thank you.
Dacher Keltner: I’m in awe of park rangers. We met a lot of them to make this show, and they were at the premiere in Visalia, and the Sequoia park rangers are awesome. They’re underpaid, they’re under assault, and they’re incredible human beings.
Sarah Bracken: Thanks, Dacher. Truth.
Vicki Zakrzewski: I was trying to think of what brought me awe when I was a kid, and I thought of fireworks. I loved lying on the grass on the 4th of July and looking up at the sky, and having all these fireworks come down on me. Oh, it was magical.
Sarah Bracken: Thank you.
Maryam Abdullah: I was just at my son’s preschool, which he hasn’t been to in many, many years, but one of the teachers there was retiring after 31 years. So being with kiddos in a preschool, that definitely brings a lot of awe.
Sarah Bracken: Thank you, Maryam. So from our chat, just so you know, people are throwing out great stuff. Art, the ocean, bald eagles, watching horses, grandchildren, Rome, Italy, I’m assuming, reading, sunsets, sky and stars. Thank you to our audience members. Please keep throwing stuff into the chat, you never know where you’ll find a connection, or inspire someone to seek awe themselves.
We are going to jump into our questions now. And so our first questions are for the creators, Halle and Dorian. Let me give you a little bit of information about them as we spotlight them on our screen for you. Halle Stanford is a Primetime and Children’s Emmy Award winner, a 2025 Silver Circle Children’s and Family Emmy’s inductee, and a 12-time Emmy-nominated television producer, whose work has helped shape the global landscape of children’s and family entertainment. During her 30-year tenure at the Jim Henson Company, including serving as president of television for eight years, she guided beloved franchises including, you guys listen up, if you’re my age, you’re going to recognize these and be kind of excited … OK. Fraggle Rock, Back to the Rock, and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train, and Bear in the Big Blue House. Now the founder and president of Seven Crow Stories, Halle continues to champion imaginative, inclusive, and educational storytelling that inspires young audiences everywhere. Thank you so much for being here, Halle.
Halle Stanford: Thank you for having me. And I feel like Ronald E. Piggington is like, “Why am I shouting?” I’m so excited to be here …
Sarah Bracken: Totally.
Halle Stanford: … so thank you for having us.
Sarah Bracken: I’m glad you’re here. Dorian Davies, just to my right. Dorian Davies is the executive producer, writer, and principal puppeteer of Wowsabout. She studied sketch and improv at the Groundlings Theater, and was recruited into the cast of Brian Henson’s live stage show, Puppet Up! Uncensored, where she mastered Henson-style television puppetry. She has puppeteered dozens of cherished characters for film and TV, including Lulu on Word Party, and Fizz on the Julie Andrews series, Julie’s Greenroom, both for Netflix. She’s an executive producer, co-creator, and writer of Wowsabout and performs, are you ready? This is so exciting, she is the starring role of the musical hedgehog, Roxy. Dorian, thank you so much …
Dorian Davies: Hi.
Sarah Bracken: … for being here.
Dorian Davies: I’m also the hedgehog.
Sarah Bracken: You are also the hedgehog. And for those of you in the audience, what you don’t know is we all got together about 30 minutes before this started, and one of my colleagues’ daughters was here, she’s around 5, and Roxy came and spoke to my colleague’s daughter for a few minutes, and she was blown away. This little girl was just full of smiles, so excited to have s’mores with Roxy. So thank you so much for being here. My first question, I mean, maybe Halle, we’ll start with you, where did the idea come from for Wowsabout?
Halle Stanford: OK. Well, thank you for asking. I wanted to just set up a little preface that when I create shows for television, I really think about the modern child and family, and what they need in their lives to thrive and be inspired by. So it’s always like this little crystal ball, like, “What do they need in three years once a show comes out in their world, of course, to be entertained?” So good example Sid the Science Kid, when I came up with that, I noticed my son, Max, who is actually on the Zoom right now, the grownup Sid the Science Kid, he’s so embarrassed I just said that, but he was a born scientist, and I realized on the television landscape there was no science curriculum for this age group celebrating it. So that began Sid.
But then the second thing I really think about is, you have to create a first friend for this age group to engage them in a show. So Grover was my first friend. And so we need that character to pull them in to play with them, to play with the curriculum. So the idea for Wowsabout, now you know how I think, my brain thinks, it started in the pandemic. I was listening to a National Science Foundation panel on Climate Hope, and really listening about how parents really desperately needed to have this in their homes, and teachers in schools. And then I thought, “Yes, how are we going to get kids and their families to care for the planet and one another? What could be that sticky idea in a series that we could really lean into?” And it just came to me in a moment of awe, driving through Topanga Canyon, where I get my best ideas.
And I was listening to Dolly Parton, and suddenly, I had this vision of a little hedgehog on the side of the road in her little pink hiking boots, with her guitar in her bag, out to find the wows of the world. I’m like, “That’s it. That’s the first friend.” And then a few days later, I saw an article in the New York Times, “How Awe Can Improve Your Health.” And it was this incredible article about all the great research that Dacher Keltner and the Greater Good Science Center was doing on awe, and all of its many benefits. But most importantly, I saw in there, “Awe inspires us to care for the planet and one another.” And I was like, “Bingo, that’s it.” We had our mission, we had our first friend and our reason for being, and it was so exciting.
So I reached out to Vicki at the Greater Good Science Center. I had worked with her before on a show about dogs with a happiness curriculum, and she introduced us to Dacher, and the rest is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The more we studied awe, the more it informed the characters and the story engine of the series and special. And those Eight Wonders of Awe that Dacher talks about, whether it’s visual design, or collective effervescence, my favorite one, those suddenly became wowsabouts. We were like, “Oh, other ways to explore and have wowsabouts.”
And then on action, what happens to us in big and small ways when we experience it, suddenly became another story engine of how it affected our characters and story. So when you see that butterfly moment in the show, they were fighting, they were so frustrated, and then they had that moment with the butterflies, that moment of awe, and then they came back together, and they apologized, and then went off and had a wows about. So all of that that I just described led to that butterfly moment in Wowsabout.
Sarah Bracken: And in our comments from the audience, many people actually said as they were watching the show, they had goosebumps, they had butterflies. So I feel like something so beautiful is that the show is, in some ways, an awe experience in and of itself. How is this possible? How are there these two puppets in real Sequoia, with real children and rangers? So I want to ask Dorian a little bit about that. Being a puppeteer, being the voice and the character of Roxy, what was that like? How did you bring Roxy to life in this environment?
Dorian Davies: Oh, gosh. Well, there’s a gift to creating a character with Halle, because normally, when you’re on the other side of things, they give you a script, and you have to kind of interpret that and make it fun. But we got to make her fun from the beginning. We got to plant the seeds of, “Who is this character? What does she want to do?” And one of my favorite ways to start that kind of character creation is, you think about what do they want?
And then you think about what are their flaws? What are they working on? And so obviously with Roxy, she really wants to be creative. She really wants to follow her impulses, but also that is some of the things she needs to work on. She needs to maybe be a little bit more thoughtful, and maybe not say the first thing that comes to her mind, but her intentions are good. And so Ronald and Roxy kind of fit each other in their needs.
So working on those characters was really exciting, because we knew them so well. We knew them so well when we had gone to shooting. And once we got up to the Sequoias, we took 2 or 3 trips up there to really make sure we had a good connection with the park, and the land, and the people, and the stories that we wanted to tell. We were super inspired when we saw certain places, and we would kind of craft them back into the script after the fact, because we just got to know the space.
Shooting up in Sequoia is not an easy studio shoot. Our producer, Jaime Burke, had to do a lot of pre-production, do a lot of thinking. There’s no cell phone coverage, there’s no power. There’s a lot of things that we were without. And I’m a camper, we can do this. I don’t need much. I need a backpack, and a pad, and a sleeping bag, and maybe some dehydrated food. But unions, and rules, and all those things. So we actually had a really incredibly well-run set, and we tried to leave the space better than we found it in true National Park fashion.
The Rangers were remarkable, and we felt safe. Yes, there were whispers of bears, but we managed to escape safely and produce the show. We were dirty. We got up really early. We had a larger crew, and then we had a much smaller crew so that we could accommodate sensitive sites like General Sherman. We didn’t close anything down. Those sites are really important.
So we got up at dawn, and we shot some of those General Sherman things real early, and we were super respectful, with a really small skeleton crew. And a lot of the sets were elevated, which is something really cool that we accomplished, because when you’re working on an even ground as a puppeteer, you kind of have to be able to be standing, and have your hand above your head, and … You can be a lot more expressive when you’re standing as a puppeteer. So our amazing design crew put together these raised platforms, and we put the tent, and we put the camper van on top of them.
Sarah Bracken: Oh.
Dorian Davies: So there’s a little behind the scenes fun.
Sarah Bracken: Yeah. And we have a question in the audience about the van.
Dorian Davies: Yes.
Sarah Bracken: How did you do that?
Dorian Davies: Isn’t that cool?
Halle Stanford: The van actually, Dorian and I know this, became the sleeper hit of Wowsabout. My husband, Ian Nothnagel is the production designer for the show, and he and Giles August and Nolan Zweig, they built that van.
Sarah Bracken: Wow.
Halle Stanford: That van works. It was originally designed by our illustrator, Sydney Hanson, who also designed the character. So they took this 2D drawing, and they made it work. It’s a whole process, but they’re driving, and Roxy has her license. It’s construction paper, and she designed it herself, and it’s real. But anyway, it was really exciting.
Dorian Davies: We have to tell you a little funny story, because the ranger that was working with us the day that we were shooting that beautiful scenic shot was managing the safety of the road and things like that. And he pulled Roxy over, and he was like, “Your license is made with crayon, ma’am. I need you to step out of the car.”
Halle Stanford: We had fun. We had fun on the set. We had fun. But yes, the van, it’s incredible. Thank you for doing the shout-out. We’re very proud of it.
Sarah Bracken: It was incredible. And did you say it was remote control? Is that-
Halle Stanford: Yeah. It is remote-controlled. As were the puppeteering, Dorian, right? Of Roxy and Ronald inside the van. So lots of technology behind that shot.
Sarah Bracken: OK. Oh, wow. Neat. What are some other things that you loved about making Wowsabout. Maybe a favorite moment, or a person who really was inspirational in the making of the show, or something about the park itself? What would you share with us about that?
Dorian Davies: I know what I’m going to say.
Halle Stanford: OK, go.
Dorian Davies: OK. We had done a lot of thinking about awe, and research about awe, and Dacher had guided us, and Vicki had guided us, and we wrote the script. We were really hoping it would work. We really wanted the message to come across. And when we were up there filming, we were really kind of together.
Our crew, really well-experienced, awesome crew who is not impressed by much. They’ve been working for a really long time with lots of celebrities. By the end of the shoot, there were tough 40-something-year-old men dotting tears from their eyes, and they all filled out the junior ranger booklet and got sworn in as junior rangers, collectively the entire crew. And we have a picture and video of them all getting sworn in as junior rangers. And so it felt like our goal was accomplished. We could see the echoes of awe affecting the crew in real-time, and so we were like, “This might be working.”
Halle Stanford: Yeah.
Sarah Bracken: Thanks, Dorian.
Halle Stanford: I love that moment too. For me personally and professionally, one of my favorite things to do, and on this show in particular because it was my baby, is, as a producer, bringing on board the talent. Bringing on board the talent. It was so fun to bring on the A+, plus, plus, plus, plus talent onto this show, whether it was our director, John Tartaglia, who played Ronald, or the Greater Good Science Center and Dacher, my favorite editor, or the music composers, Mike Himelstein, or our producer, Jaime Burke, all of those dreamers and doers, that’s what’s exciting for me. And it was a little bit like Kermit gathering the gang, but my favorite thing of all was working with Dorian, that Dorian and I … Oh no, did I go away? Did I come back?
Sarah Bracken: You’re here.
Halle Stanford: Oh. Oh, I froze. My favorite thing of all was Dorian and I every day. We were in it. She is my hedgehog, I am her itty-bitty piggy. I mean, we feel like there should be a documentary about us making Wowsabout. We had so much fun doing it. We had so many challenges that came our way. We were raising our kids together. We were on Zoom every day. It was so much fun. I mean, just all the adventures we had to Washington D.C., Sequoia, we have a video of us running through the Sequoias hugging trees. We’re nut balls.
But I just would say that it’s been extraordinary. And when we wrote the script, there’s nothing like writing a script with Dorian doing all the character voices. So it’s just been so joyful, so much fun. So that’s my favorite thing about Wowsabout, and will continue to be my favorite thing about Wowsabout.
Sarah Bracken: Thank you. Dorian …
Dorian Davies: You’re going to make me cry on the panel.
(Other panelists laugh)
Sarah Bracken: … we do have a very specific question for you about being a puppeteer, and I would like to ask this for you because I’m curious, what’s it like? I mean, is your face doing a bunch of stuff? And your body, are you acting as your … Or are you really just doing it with your arm?
Dorian Davies: Well, I can tell you what I do, but what I do is not necessarily what everybody does. And I tend to be a lot more expressive down below, I think, than some puppeteers. When I was trained, I was told, “Don’t waste it. Don’t worry about your face. Don’t waste it, put it all into the character.” But I came from comedy, and I came from sketch, and I came from being weird and doing all kinds of weird stuff, it’s kind of hard to put that back in the bag, so I just … But I will say, the interesting thing about puppetry, and this is something that people don’t really realize, it’s just acting. It’s just acting. You have a relationship with this character.
I mean, I would say, with puppetry, you have so much more flexibility, because I can be a hedgehog, I don’t have to just be a middle-aged woman. So I do think that a lot of people probably don’t realize how much actual acting is involved in puppetry. And some of the puppeteers that I’ve worked with are just so remarkably talented, and could just absolutely run a race with anyone else who’s on camera, just because they bring their A game, and I think that’s what’s been really exciting. And working with Johnny is a real gift. He’s so, so talented, and so exciting, and he raises the caliber of all of us to a much higher performance level.
And nothing intimidates him. There was a period of time when we were trying to figure out, “What are we going to do about puppeteering inside the camper band?” Because the remote control puppets, are not … They’re not as precise. We don’t love them. Like them from a distant, but they’re not real. And he was like, “Oh, that’s fine. Here’s what we’ll do, we’ll get a process trailer, we’ll raise it up. We’ll do this, we’ll do this. Up in Sequoia in the middle of nowhere, we’ll build it, we’ll put it all together.” Johnny’s vision and his ambition kind of raises us all. And then now we’ve got those great up close shots where they’re sitting in the front singing to each other Kermit and Fozzie style.
Sarah Bracken: Yeah. Oh.
Halle Stanford: Dorian’s being very humble. I want you to know it’s incredibly rigorous to be a puppeteer, and everybody right now watching can hold their arm up like this for 10 minutes, and look at a camera, act, sing, deal with all the elements around them and all the crew, it’s a lot of work. It’s very difficult.
Dorian Davies: It is. It’s a lot of pilates, and it’s literally 12-hour days of me just doing this. I can just do it.
Halle Stanford: It’s really hard.
Sarah Bracken: I hope you have a good massage therapist as part of your contract.
Dorian Davies: Yeah. Yeah. I’m married to him.
Sarah Bracken: I want to give you one last question. It’s not the question that we talked about, so just so you’re aware. But before I do that, I want to tell you and the audience, everyone loves the idea of a documentary about how you made the show, and your relationship and growth together. So just so you know.
Halle Stanford: Let’s do it. Who wants to fund it? We’re ready. Dorian and I are ready.
Sarah Bracken: But the last question I have for you is this, so take a minute to think about it as you need to, but what tips do you have for creatives and educators who are creative, and maybe families too, who want to write and design stories for kids with a heart of edutainment? Because that’s different than just the flashbang of entertainment.
Halle Stanford: Yeah. I mean, again, just to sort of see what inspires you, and where you see that you want to contribute to what kids and families need in their lives, so it could be anything. But here’s my number one biggest piece of advice is, see what’s out there. Go to every kids bookstore, see what’s working, see what kids are loving, walk up and down the aisles of a Target, I do it all the time, and see what is on the shelves, what are kids responding to. Be on top of the research, read Dacher Keltner’s book on awe. You need to know new educational research. Immerse yourself in that world, and watch what’s on TV, and watch what’s working and what’s not working. And that includes YouTube. There’s a lot of great stuff on there, and there’s a lot of garbage, but at least you’re immersing yourself in it, and you’re learning about it. And then just do it, just put it on paper and just keep going. You’ve got to show up every day and at least write a little bit, but really immerse yourself in that world.
Sarah Bracken: Thanks. That’s great, Halle.
Dorian Davies: I want to say don’t forget that the humor is how children pay attention, and don’t be afraid of the humor. When you’re writing for TV, there’s a lot of executives, and people further on, and networks who will kind of cut the comedy and say, “No, this is bad modeling.” Or, “We don’t want to do this.” I mean, obviously you want good modeling, but be a little brave with humor and character. And that kind of stuff I think is really the way to get into children’s homes and their hearts, because you want to be, as Halle always says, their first friend. You want to be their friend first, and then the education comes later.
Halle Stanford: Yeah.
Dorian Davies: Yeah.
Sarah Bracken: Yeah. Thank you so much. We are going to switch gears. You’re the experts on bringing this kind of education and entertainment into people’s homes, I would like to speak to some of the folks who helped to influence that education piece. So if we can do a quick switcheroo of our cameras and bring out Dacher, Vicki, and Maryam. Thank you Halle and Dorian, we’ll bring you back in just a minute.
Oh, I’m so excited because these are my colleagues, and so it’s lovely to have you here. Dacher Keltner is a distinguished professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, and he’s the Faculty Director of the Greater Good Science Center. He’s a host of its award-winning podcast, The Science of Happiness. Dacher’s research focuses on the biological and cultural evolution of compassion, awe, love, beauty, and humility. He’s the author of several books, most recently Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. Thank you so much for being here, Dacher.
Dacher Keltner: Good to be here.
Sarah Bracken: Vicki Zakrzewski is the Founding Education Director at the Greater Good Science Center, where she translates the science of compassion, empathy, forgiveness, awe, and other social and emotional skills to improve the well-being of students and educators. She writes articles, gives talks and workshops worldwide, designs online courses for educators, and is the creative lead for the Greater Good’s online resource hub, Greater Good in Education. Welcome, Vicki.
And Maryam Abdullah is the Parenting Program Director at the Greater Good Science Center. She’s a developmental psychologist, with expertise in parent-child relationships, and children’s development of prosocial behaviors. At Greater Good, Maryam’s role is to support organizations, providing parenting education to raise caring children, and to share the latest parenting science findings on Greater Good’s website and magazine. Welcome, Maryam.
Maryam Abdullah: Thank you, Sarah.
Sarah Bracken: Thanks for being here, everybody. I want to just throw a general first impressions question at you first, what does the show get right about the science of awe and children experiencing awe? Maybe, Dacher, we’ll start with you, if that’s OK?
Dacher Keltner: Yeah. It’s humbling to watch a complicated science of awe be translated in art to a 3-year-old child, and Halle and Dorian took the science really seriously, and you can see it throughout the show. You can see it in how Ronald and Roxy listen to the water, and they hear the bird call, and they hear the wind, and they feel the wind, and then they look up at the trees, and they touch the trees, and then they talk about goosebumps, and wow, and sing, and draw, and have those moments, and that’s awe.
Through many conversations with them, they digested the science, they thought about it. And as a scientist in the lab, and then just to see how it’s portrayed in these characters, and the exuberance that it brings to them, I think it’s a signature moment for the science of awe, and then more broadly, our culture. This is something that kids feel all the time. We don’t know a lot about that scientifically. We will in the next 10 years, but wow, does that show teach us a lot about awe in just a few short minutes, with a lot of comedy and love.
Sarah Bracken: Yeah. Thanks. Well said. There is comedy and love in that show. I appreciate that. Vicki and Maryam, did anything jump out for you that just, “Yeah, that’s exactly it”?
Vicki Zakrzewski: There were so many moments of awe, and different kinds of awe, things that inspired awe in the characters. But I think the one that really struck me was the pictograph moment at Hospital Rock, and how it shows the ancient history, but also the interconnectedness of life. And this is, to me, what, Dacher, you might call a big idea, which is one of the Eight Wonders of Awe that somebody has mentioned. There’s so much nature-based awe in Wowsabout, but there are other forms of awe also in the show like this one.
It made such a big impression on me, because this idea of big ideas that open your mind to new ways of thinking about, and seeing the world, that’s personally my own way of experiencing awe. I just love new ideas that blow my mind. And I think in schools, kids may be exposed every single day to big ideas. So there are just so many opportunities for kids to experience awe all the time. So I love that moment at Hospital Rock.
Sarah Bracken: Thank you.
Maryam Abdullah: I love all of what Dacher and Vicki have shared. And for me, I think I’m going to just underline what Dacher shared in terms of, sometimes we take for granted how … We don’t really know how much children are processing the world, or thinking about the world, but in this beautiful illustration of how children can actually have the capacity for something that we think is quite sophisticated, it’s … Awe feels big, and yet children are able to experience it. And I think Halle, and Dorian, and the team at Wowsabout did a beautiful job of making that point not to dismiss the capacity of children, that children are capable of doing amazing things, including experiencing awe.
And I also wanted to just add, something that I really, really loved, Halle and Dorian, about the story is how Roxy invokes her grammy. That Grammy was a central figure in all of Roxy’s experiences from the beginning, to the middle, to the end, where she remembers that this is someone who nurtured awe in her, and inspired awe in her. And she kept on pursuing it in the way that her grammy kind of cultivated and nurtured in her. So I thought that was really, really profound.
Sarah Bracken: Yes. Thank you, Maryam. That’s so true. Yeah, you have me thinking about the ways that our ancestors inspire awe in us, whether they were teaching it directly or not. Something that I love about the show is that it helped me to name what awe was. I mean, I know you can read research papers about it, but maybe it’s to name it for my children who are 5 and 7, and that we could talk about it after the show. What makes you say wow? What makes you wonder? So I appreciate that there’s the visual stuff, but also the history, the big ideas, our ancestors. Thank you.
Dacher, I want to ask you as kind of a follow-up question to what you said, what do we know about research? You said we don’t know much, but what do we know about the research about awe and children? And sort of to Maryam’s point, they’re certainly capable of experiencing deep awe. So what do we know about it?
Dacher Keltner: Yeah. I mean, the work largely coming out of Europe, and I think that it’s going to really expand in the next 10 years, awe has the same benefits for kids as it does for adults, that we’ve been talking about and documenting in the lab. It makes kids kinder, it makes kids more creative. Dante Dixson, who came out of Berkeley, kids in very under-resourced schools, which he studies, awe really helps kids stay curious, and be in love with the big ideas that move Vicki in the classroom. And so I think that what we’ll see scientifically is … And this is happening in Holland, for example, is just the study of 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds, what the role of awe is, and then chart its developmental trajectory
And I think most parents, and educators, and teachers, and creators like Halle, and Dorian, and John will tell you, it is, like Einstein said, just the fount of humanity, art, science, and how to be a good citizen. And we need to know that. But we already know that in some sense, science will help us with that. And I think more importantly, the show awakens parents and caregivers around young children to realize, “This is easy and powerful, and let’s go. Let’s go and wowsabout.” And I want that van. I grew up …
Sarah Bracken: I know.
Dacher Keltner: … in vans in National Park, so this show hit me very personally.
Sarah Bracken: Yeah. Thank you. Dacher, you’re making me think, and I’m going to use this kind of thought to segue into getting some practical tips from Vicki and Maryam for cultivating awe, but you’re making me think about the idea that awe, and this is part of our definition at Greater Good, it’s not just about what you see on the outside in nature, or even big ideas, I wonder, how do we see other humans as awesome, right?
Dacher Keltner: Yeah.
Sarah Bracken: We talk about that at Greater Good when someone does something really kind, or really brave, that can inspire awe. And I wonder, wonder and wow, I wonder how to bring it down even more to that human level where you’re just listening to someone’s story, and that in and of itself can help us feel those goosebumps, because their story … Every human has something that is pretty amazing. And so thinking about how we build connections through big experiences of awe, and then interpersonal experiences of awe. I’m curious about that.
Dacher Keltner: Yeah. And we call it moral beauty, and our lab’s working on it a lot. But the show has so much wise moral beauty in it. As Maryam said, like the honoring of a grandmother. And in our research on moral beauty, grandmothers are often the first person that people think of for a lot of good reasons culturally. I love the reference that Ronald shows towards the rangers, that he’s just like, “Wow, a ranger. I can’t believe it.” And they are doing awesome work. So there’s just subtle moral beauty throughout the show that we need to remember in … I mean, a lot of what you get online is not morally beautiful. It’s been designed in a different way, and this show is so powerful in that regard, and an important reminder.
Sarah Bracken: Thank you for, again, helping me name what I’m thinking about, moral beauty. That’s great. Now I have this great term, so thank you. Vicki, let me ask you, teacher to teacher, I was a former teacher, what are some strategies you would suggest for teachers to bring awe experiences into the classroom? And not just to have the experience, but then to help students process that, and use it for both learning and prosocial behavior?
Vicki Zakrzewski: Yeah, no, there are so many ways. I think most teachers know that awe is just a natural part of learning. I mean, it’s something that they probably see in the classroom all the time, but then to actually name it and recognize what it is, it’s really powerful when educators can then be on the lookout for it, or try to bring in experiences into the classroom that children might find awe-inspiring. So some teachers tell me about taking their students on an awe walk, which any age can do, going outside and just looking at the world through that lens of awe. And they can do it whether they’re in nature, or urban settings. A couple of teachers from New York City took their students outside to just look up at the sky, because they say living in New York City, you forget, just look up at the sky and you’ll feel awe.
A school in Canada, this was incredible, they invited their students out onto the soccer field to create a human spiderweb that was enacting an indigenous creation story. So they were experiencing awe through collective effervescence, this idea of moving together in unison. It was just beautiful. Another teacher talked about bringing awe in by exposing her students to new cultures, new ideas. Others about bringing in things like fractals, or Rube Goldberg machines, or slime molds. But it can be really, really simple too. Preschool teachers tell me that these little ones find it in the smallest things, like just mixing paints to create new colors. That’s just this incredible experience for them.
But I think one thing also that is really amazing that’s come out of the work I’ve done with educators in awe is, teachers themselves who learn about awe start to look at their work environment through this lens of awe, and they experience it in a very new way. One teacher told me how the path that she would take every day, and that she had taken for years walking to her classroom, she looked at it through a lens of awe, and it made her feel so much better walking that path. So she had a different kind of day doing that.
I think one of my favorite stories was the teacher who told me she felt awe making photocopies in the office, and she’s thinking about all the people that it took to enable her to actually do that. But talking about moral beauty, there was a wonderful teacher in Sacramento, is a middle school teacher, talked about moral beauty with her students. And she started by showing them a video that we have on our website, Greater Good in Education, that shows a lot of different examples of moral beauty. And afterwards, she and her students had this amazing conversation about beauty, and how there are different kinds of beauty.
And for middle school, this is really important. It’s not just the externals that you see, but it’s also the internals. And then that inspired the students to then think about what can they do to make their community more beautiful through acts of moral beauty. So it was really, really inspiring as well. So there’s just so many wonderful things, and teachers are so creative that, take a lesson, they’ll figure out how to put awe into it.
But I do think it’s really important though for educators to know that not every student is going to experience awe, or they’ll feel awe in different ways. Different things will inspire it. So you may bring in what you think is this incredible experience, and half the class is like, “OK. Great.” And that’s OK. It’s really important to validate all the students’ experiences, but just recognize that not everyone’s going to feel it, and invite the students to share what helps them to experience awe. And all of a sudden, you’ve got this amazing collection of awe experiences.
Sarah Bracken: Oh, that’s a great idea. Bringing in student voice, and making sure you have options for accessing awe, I think that really will shift the classroom. And it also takes some of the burden off the teacher to always be the one who’s thinking of the idea. Our students are full of ideas, they’re going to be bringing awe experiences to us and to their peers. So thank you.
Maryam, how about for you? What would you say to parents? How can parents encourage awe experiences for their children? And can parents and kids do wows about experiences together? What do you think?
Maryam Abdullah: Totally. Totally. I highly recommend it. And first, I will say, for parents, find awe for yourself, because your awe experiences matter for you as a parent, and in your capacity to be the parent that you want to be for your child. So I would just want to encourage parents not to forget themselves, and not to forget that their awe experiences matter for them and for their children. So it’s a double benefit to find awe for yourself as a parent. And that can be in so many ways, I loved, I think it was Roxy’s line, “I see the natural beauty in each person. Play something.” I love that, Halle and Dorian, because I think we sometimes can find awe in such ordinary circumstances, that it doesn’t have to feel like you have to go far away.
And we talked about moral beauty, I think in our neighborhood we have a neighbor who’s turned 90 years old, and one of the neighbors was like, “Hey, everyone. Let’s go and surprise Connie and tell her happy birthday.” So kind of coming together as a neighbor community, and finding people to celebrate. And that inspires awe, I think in children as well as in the adults that are coming together. I think for parents as well, thinking about just the simple things, going outside into the yard, or on the sidewalk, and seeing what’s out there.
I’ll tell you one thing, we have a neighbor who has given my son little caterpillar eggs on citrus leaves. I have a fifth grader, so I have fifth grade humor, it’s a bird poop caterpillar, which is awesome. And I appreciate Vicki saying people will find awe in different things. For us, it was the bird poop caterpillar. That was the awe-inspiring thing. So watching nature in these small little ways, but then also finding awe in children. Children experiencing ways that they care about one another. When someone gets hurt, showing compassion towards them. Those are just everyday moments that you could talk about at the dinner table or on the ride to school. So there’s so many ways. You don’t have to go far. I think that’s the biggest message to share with parents.
Sarah Bracken: Yeah. You’re reminding me of the little tree or bush, some plant is pushing through my driveway, and my children are fascinated, “How can this be alive in this stone, cement space?” So we don’t, it’s just right outside our door. Thank you, Maryam. That’s lovely.
I’d like to bring all of our panelists back together. We’re almost at the end of our time together, which is wild. Thank you for being here, audience, and for your questions. I can see a few questions are coming in that we probably won’t have time for today, but we will be sending out an email with a recording for everyone who registered, and I will send these questions to our researchers and show creators, and see if they can send an answer back, and we’ll include that in the email. So thank you so much for your questions. Please keep them coming. We’re so grateful to see your curiosity about the show and about awe.
Welcome back, Halle and Dorian. Thank you for being here. My question to sort of end the show is the show. Listen to me. I feel like I’m now in entertainment myself. The question that I thought we might end on today is this, it feels like awe is having a moment, and I wonder why you think it’s so important right now. Maybe it is having a moment, maybe it’s not, maybe I’m just immersed in it, but why is awe so important right now? And anyone can answer. But what do you think?
Halle Stanford: Well, I’ll jump in. I think after the pandemic, families are really looking at the overall wellness of their children, and how we can also lead more meaningful lives. And I saw that with the talk on Climate Hope, it’s what inspired. So I think parents are really looking for that hope and guidance. And experiencing awe can bring that to the family. And listening to Maryam and Vicki talk about all these ways of bringing awe into your family just sounded incredible. And so we’re not necessarily pulling them away from the screens, we talk a lot about them, but we’re getting them to engage in the world, and this is the way we change it. So I feel like that is why it’s having a moment right now.
Sarah Bracken: Thank you.
Dorian Davies: I’m not going to be as thoughtful. I’m just going to say, it feels like the opposite of the internet, and I feel like we live …
Halle Stanford: Sure.
Dorian Davies: … on our computers. I mean, as much as I want to be in Sequoia all day, and going on hikes, I’m sitting at this desk and I’m on my computer working all day. And I love that awe is an incentive, or the research on awe, and the stuff that y’all are doing, it’s such an incentive, even more so. We knew it, we kind of knew, go for a walk, get outside. But we now have the actual kind of science that is incentivizing us to pull us out into the world to experience this beauty, to experience this collective effervescence, these big ideas, and we can diagnose it. We can say, “Oh, that’s that feeling.” And maybe through continue practice, we can actually better our quality of life. Not just become more efficient, we can actually be a little bit happier. That feels like, wow, it’s super powerful, and I really hope it just keeps growing.
Sarah Bracken: Awe as an antidote to lethargy and social disconnection. I love it. I’m in. What about y’all, Vicki, Dacher, and Maryam? You study it, you see it in practice, what do you think?
Vicki Zakrzewski: I think, to me, one of the most amazing things about the science that Dacher has done in testing awe and seeing what the impact is, is that the experience of awe connects you to something larger than yourself, and also connects you to common humanity. It makes you feel part of the human family. And I think all reminds us of our humanity, both our own and each other’s. And I feel like in this moment, we need that around the world, everywhere, so much. And it gets us up out of ourselves, the challenges that we face. It reminds us that we really do live in this incredible world, with incredible human beings. And so just go outside and look up at the sky.
And I remember, Halle, when you first came to me about Wowsabout, both of you had put together eventually kind of a Bible for the show, and this plan, the original plan to take it all over the world. I just was so inspired, and I really, really hope that that happens, to go all over the world. But then you also just told us recently that at the end of the filming, you asked the crew to list where would they go. And you got just this incredible list of places, or … I don’t know what was on that list, but just shows you there’s awe everywhere. And so we all have this opportunity to feel that connection, to feel part of something larger than ourselves. And I just think that’s the most incredible thing about awe.
Sarah Bracken: Thanks, Vicki.
Dorian Davies: Where would you go, Vicki? That’s the question.
Vicki Zakrzewski: Oh my gosh. That is a great question. And it’s impossible to answer. There are places all over the world that I love.
Halle Stanford: Everybody put their wowsabouts in the chat.
(Crosstalk)
Sarah Bracken: Let’s invite the audience. Where should Roxy and Ronald go next? Throw it into the chat. We would love to find that out. Where would you send them? In your neighborhood, in another country, outer space? Where would you send Roxy and Ronald?
Vicki Zakrzewski: You know what I would love? Because you guys had this in the original Bible, was going to a football match or soccer match in Europe to experience the collective effervescence. And I’ve actually done that, and it’s the most incredible experience, so that’s what I would do.
Halle Stanford: Great.
Sarah Bracken: Dacher or Maryam, you want to add? Why is awe so important right now for you?
Dacher Keltner: Well, I mean, I think I always rely on the data, and we’re at an inflection point in our culture. Our kids are too self-focused. We’ve got rises in a fractionated country of polarization, and racism, and misogyny. It’s kind of trouble right now. And awe, as is said in one of the songs, it reminds children that they’re part of something big. And here we are heading into the 250th anniversary of the country, and part of the spirit of the show is to … Man, the national parks, 320 million people go to that … Visits a year. Idea came out at Berkeley. It’s serving a more diverse populist by the day, and we’ve just got to remember what connects us, and we’ve lost sight of that in this country. So I think the show and then awe is about that, and gets kids to remember, like, “I’m part of something big, and I’m small.”
Sarah Bracken: Thank you, Dacher.
Maryam Abdullah: Yeah. I think everything that you all have shared really feels resonant for me. I’ll just underline, we have research telling us that more and more folks are feeling lonely. 1/3 of adults report feeling lonely. Some people call this a loneliness epidemic. And if adults are feeling lonely, how are those children that those adults are connected to feeling? And if awe can be something that alleviates that feeling of loneliness for adults so they can feel a connection to all of us together, that we are something bigger, that we’re all interlinked and intertwined, I think certainly the adults will be … Their well-being will be strengthened, and children in turn will also know that they’re connected as well.
And I think for children, how beautiful, what a gift to know that you can pause and just savor a feeling of being connected to the whole wide world. And if you can build that, and just help children know that they can call upon that so easily in ordinary times when they’re struggling, that’s such a gift for a child to be able to know how to do that when they’re a child, when they’re an adolescent, and when they’re an adult.
Sarah Bracken: Thanks, Maryam. Yeah. I’m going to sit with that and think about that. Thank you. I want to share some of the amazing suggestions for Roxy and Ronald. Let’s see.
Halle Stanford: I’m writing them down. Getting my pen.
Sarah Bracken: Yeah, we’ll make sure. It’s a good list. So just a couple of my favorites, Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon. So the biggest and the deepest places we could walk. But also Route 66, Jurassic Park, which is hilarious and wonderful. Central Park, the Galapagos Islands, the Eiffel Tower, a farmer’s market, a skyscraper, Machu Picchu. These are great. Thank you so much. Keep them coming. Keep these suggestions coming. And let me ask you, Dorian and Halle, what’s next? What’s next for Roxy and Ronald?
Halle Stanford: What’s next? Well, I have to tell you also, that Route 66 one, Dorian and I have already talked about that. We think Ronald’s obsessed with motorcycles. It’s going to be a thing, she’s going to be in the sidecar, it’s going to happen.
Sarah Bracken: Yes.
Halle Stanford: I want to just do a big shout-out right now too, because we’ve been talking about, let’s do a Wowsabout awe movement all across the world, but big shout-out to public television and PBS KIDS for making awe accessible to every child, and the show accessible to every child. So we are looking forward to continuing our relationship with PBS KIDS, and Dorian and I are on our own wowsabout to hopefully raise funding for a series, and keep the wows going. We’re hitting the road, hedgehog.
And in the meantime, all kinds of wonderful opportunities and partners we’re talking with, nothing confirmed yet, but big high profile museums where Roxy and Ronald are going to come visit and have Wowsabouts there. National Park Foundation just put out a wonderful PSA with Roxy and Ronald, encouraging families to come to the national park. So I think that we’ll continue to see Roxy and Ronald, hopefully a lot more short-form programming. And then of course, Dorian and I are now taking a collection for our documentary, How We Made Wowsabout, and you can reach out to Sarah and she’ll help you connect us otherwise. So Dorian, what else? You talk. You go.
Dorian Davies: I kept thinking Two Moms Making A Television Show with Public Television and the National Park Service in 2025, and that’s the title. Yeah, Halle said it all. I think we really want to expand, and we want to take them in lots of other places. And my big goal, and this has been something I’ve been thinking a lot about personally and in this show, is making awe super accessible for kids in every day. So really demonstrating that they don’t have to fly to Alaska to see the Northern Lights if that’s not in the cards for them. We can help them get there. We can show them through the television, but we can also demonstrate how to experience it in the smallness of their walk to school, or the bus, or the kindness of others, or … Dacher said the other day at the dinner table. And so I really, really want to deep dive into that, and bring a lot more Wowsabouts to PBS.
Sarah Bracken: Thank you. We hope so too. As my 7-year-old, who’s very serious said at the end of the show, “Can I watch another one?” And I said, “I hope so.” And he said, “No, can I watch it right now?” So he’s ready. The kids are ready for more. So we hope so too, our fingers are crossed for you. You have our support all the way. Thank you so much for being here today. We’re going to throw a slide up right now that has some information about Greater Good Science Center. I want to share a few things with you.
We hope this experience has benefited you. You felt part of a community. We have a short survey. It really is short. If you could take it maybe even before you leave today, that would be incredible. Just a couple things that are coming up, if you’re excited to dive more deeply into the science and practice of awe, we have an online course that was designed by Dacher and Vicki. It’s called Awe in Education, and the link’s getting put in the chat right now. And you’ll also find tons of free practices at this link, all around building awe for yourself, your colleagues, your family, your classroom. So check those resources out.
In August, Halle and Dorian will be back, this time on the Science of Happiness podcast. So they’re going to take a special awe walk with listeners. Get ready for that. This summer, we have two live events, just like this one, in June we’re having an event called Finding the Funny in Hard Times. We hope you come and join us. And then in August, we’ll be talking about the purpose of education, and how can school be for much, much more than standardized tests. We all know that it is for more than that. So we’ll be talking about that.
As we said, please take a minute to fill out this survey. We’ll be sending a follow-up email with a recording link, and answering some questions that you had that we couldn’t get to today. I just want to give a huge thank you to our panelists today, Dacher Keltner, Vicki Zakrzewski, Maryam Abdullah, Halle Stanford, and Dorian Davies. Thank you so, so much for inspiring us today, making us smile, giving us goosebumps. Thank you for your beautiful show, Wowsabout. We are so lucky to have been able to spend this time with you today. Thank you to our audience who came, you gave of your time, and we appreciate you. We’ll see you at our next event.
(Music: “No One Is Perfect” by HoliznaCC0)
Anne Brice (outro): You’ve been listening to Berkeley Talks, a UC Berkeley News podcast from Strategic Communications at Berkeley. Follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can find all of our podcast episodes, with transcripts and photos, on UC Berkeley News at news.berkeley.edu/podcasts.
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