The Whynauts

Like most businesses, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science faces many challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, schools are currently unable to take educational field trips and museum visits. The leadership at the Perot Museum wanted to create a new way to connect with educators and administrators, students, and families to continue their mission – to inspire minds through nature and science!

The Perot Museum partnered with Groove Jones to develop an interactive visual component to its STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, & Math) education programming. The result was a highly engaging and fun video series, aligned with TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) that brings a new learning experience to students across Texas.

The Whynauts series is not a collection of virtual museum tours. The Whynauts feature adventures both inside the Perot Museum, and they travel anywhere across Texas! Through the creative use of digital visual effects, the cast travels to all points around the state in the Whynauts QuadCopter and the Imagination Station – a 3D holographic machine that transports the Whynauts instantaneously to different environments and situations.

The Whynauts connect what’s happening in classrooms to TEKS, while creating connections to our community — whether that is how to predict tomorrow’s weather or knowing what dinosaurs lived in Dallas more than 100 million years ago.

The series is a 10-episode series sponsored by the Perot Foundation, the Lamar Hunt family and PetroCap. Each episode includes a bilingual, standards-aligned curriculum and educator resources delivered online to teachers and educators.

The program supports students in class and through virtual learning with fun supplemental activities. Teachers can use the series as a resource for science learning and STAAR review! Students in grades K-8 learn alongside The Whynauts, discovering and developing deep knowledge about the topics teachers cover in their classrooms. These in-depth videos, educator guides, and student activities bring STEM to life— igniting a spark of joy amid current learning loss due to COVID-19.

Over 60,000 students have registered to view the series!