Summer classes

Because there’s just too much weirdness to squeeze in the Big Course

During the summers, we have fun.

This summer (2025), we’ll be doing three special courses:

  • Odd Animals

  • Believe it (or Not): Sea Monsters

  • a series of workshops for adults on a new approach to homeschooling

You can also buy the recordings of the old summer courses we’ve taught (including our popular course on human growth and development).

Odd Animals

Kids love animals… so we’re pulling out the stops and just doing a five-day summer camp on odd animals! Each day we’ll dive deep into each animal’s superpower.

You don’t need to have taken any other Science is WEIRD classes to take these.

Dates:

5 days in a row
Monday June 9 – Friday June 13, 2025

Class times:

You have a choice of two live sessions:

Morning class: 12pm Eastern / 9am Pacific
Afternoon class: 4pm Eastern / 1pm Pacific

They’re about 90 minutes each.

Recordings:

If you can’t join live, you can sign up for the recordings. We’ll upload these each evening. (If you purchase them after they’re done, you’ll get all the links at once.)

The lessons:

On Monday, we’ll tackle tardigrades. Boil them, freeze them, blast them with radiation… tardigrades don’t care! These microscopic creatures shrug off the extremes of nature—and then just keep going. How do they do it?

On Tuesday, we’ll poke at emperor penguins. Why don’t they freeze? Antarctica is a frozen wasteland, but emperor penguins thrive there. How do they stay warm in a place designed to kill?

On Wednesday, we’ll handle spitting cobras. How do they spit? How do they hit so accurately? Can they really “see” their target? And why does their venom burn like fire?

On Thursday, we’ll approach axolotls. Most creatures transform as they grow — tadpoles become frogs, caterpillars become butterflies. But axolotls refuse to change. They stay in their larval form forever, yet somehow thrive, regenerate lost limbs, and live long lives underwater. What the heck is going on?

And on Friday, we’ll approach a mystery animal… which will be chosen by your vote!

A note

Brandon will also be giving the “penguins” lesson at the Davidson Institute’s 2025 Summit in Reno, Nevada. If you’re planning to attend, you might want to skip Tuesday’s lesson. If you tell us about this in advance, we’ll give you a coupon for 1/5 off.

Believe it (or Not): Sea Monsters

The second in our special Believe it (or Not) series! Holy crap are we excited about this: a course on how to think rationally, and separate truth from fiction… even when the experts disagree.

Believe it (or Not): Sea Monsters
Monday June 23 – Friday June 27, 2025

…honestly, this is so cool that we’ve made a whole page for it.

Workshops: a new approach to homeschooling

What if you could cultivate vivid intellectual experiences for your kids? What if you could help them fall in love with all the academic subjects?

For the past year, Brandon’s been working with a group of 60 families around the world to cobble together the first draft of something big: a new approach to homeschooling.

In 10 workshops this summer, he’ll be reporting on what they’ve come up with already for the main subjects of elementary school.

Older summer classes

Oh, we have a bunch of older courses available, too! You can buy the recordings of Minds are Weird (psychology), Where Algebra Comes From (math), How to Hyperfocus (productivity), The Epic of Punctuation (writing), and ReadingHACKS (reading) on our Grab a Seat page.

You can also find our course about adolescence — Bodies are Weird — there, too, though that one’s so epic we’ve made a whole page explaining it.