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With many parents still working from home in the midst of a global pandemic as students return to the virtual classroom, some may wonder if the shows theirkids are streaming when they're not in class are doing anything to stimulate their minds.

Or are they just distracting the kids enough for you to get your work done when they could be doing both?

The good news is, there are plenty of options now available on streaming services to sneak some education into any student's viewing diet while for all they know they're merely being entertained.Choices include shows such as "Avatar: The Last Airbender," "Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything,"or"The World According to Jeff Goldblum."

Keep in mind not everything on this list will be appropriate for every child.

This educational comedy series features comedian Adam Conover debunking common misconceptions by using his magical TV host powers but also by referencing peer-reviewed articles and reaching out to experts in the field.

Each episode ends with a positive takeaway explaining how the knowledge you've just gained is better for you than the comfort of the misconceptions he's just ruined.

The Wall Street Journal said of Conover, "In short, he's irritating. But he owns it. Which makes his quasi-educational comedy series so goofily endearing."

Fast Company called him "the lovechild of Debbie Downer and the coolest, most contrarian college professor you ever had."

All three seasons of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" premiered on Netflix on May 15. Since the world is still in quarantine, now is a great time to watch it yourself for the first time or binge the series for the 50th time.(Photo: Courtesy of Forbes)

This animated series portrays the adventures of 12-year-old Aang, the last surviving Airbender, who awakens from a century in suspended animation to find the world at war.

As the spirit of light and peace in human form, Aang controls the elements and is tasked with keeping the Four Nations at peace.

Critics praised the series for addressing concepts rarely touched on in entertainment aimed at young kids, from war to genocide, imperialism, colonialism, totalitarianism and free choice.

It has a critics score of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes. Vanity Fair named it one of the best animated series since "The Simpsons," noting that it "teaches without tryingand is a shining example of what it means to show unconditional devotion to a greater cause."

This Pixar animated feature wasinspired by Da de los Muertos.

It tells the story of 12-year-old Miguel, who's magically transported to the Land of the Dead, where he enlists his deceased great-great-grandfather to help him return to the land of the living and reverse his family's ban on music.

Rolling Stone's Peter Travers praised this "loving tribute to Mexican culture," saying "Of course, a lesson is being preached to children about the need to respect elders. But Pixars 19th feature brings a soulful core to that message."

The Wrap said, "If an animated movie is going to offer children a way to process death, it's hard to envision a more spirited, touching and breezily entertaining example than Coco."

It was named best animated film of 2017 by the National Board of Review, the Golden Globes and the Critic's Choice Movie Awards.

Latif Nasser in Netflix's "Connected."(Photo: Netflix)

Here's a fun way to sneak in some science.

Latif Nasser, director of research at an award-winning New York Public Radio show called "Radiolab," investigates the surprising and intricate ways in which we're all connected to each other, the world and the universe in this six-part 2020 docuseries.

There are episodes on how surveillance pervades our lives, the power of dust, important lessons of nuclear bombs and a law of numerical probability that applies to classical music, contemporary social media, tax fraud and perhaps the universe at large.

It helps to have a host with the nerdy charisma Nasser brings to the proceedings. As Decider wrote, "This is a man who can turn weave a jaw-dropping story out of probability."

What were the odds?

CrashCourse is an educational YouTube channel started by John and Hank Green and funded by YouTube's $100 million original channel initiative.

Since launching a preview in late 2011, the channel has earned more than 10 million subscribers and 1 billion views.

At first, the channel focused on humanities and science courses, having launched with episodes on world history and biology. But after partnering in later 2014 with PBS Digital Studios, the brothers were able to expand the curriculum, recruiting additional hosts.

A second channel, Crash Course Kids, is hosted by Sabrina Cruz and has completed its first series, Science.

A collaboration with Arizona State University titled Study Hall began in 2020, offering less structured learning.

This Netflix docu-series has been around longer than "History 101" but follows a similar format.

Each episode is devoted to a single mini-lesson lasting less than 20 minutes.

Among the more serious topics the series has explored are the racial wealth gap, designer DNA, monogamy, political correctness, why women are paid less and the world's water critics. But other episodes have ranged from K-pop to cricket.

The show has had some interesting guest narrators, from Christian Slater talking cryptocurrency to John Waters on beauty, Kristin Bell on whether we can live forever (spoiler alert: we can't) and Carly Rae Jepsen on music.

"Explained" has spawned three spin-off miniseries: "The Mind, Explained," "Sex, Explained" and "Coronavirus, Explained."

Cynthia Erivo plays Harriet Tubman in "Harriet."(Photo: Glen Wilson)

Born into slavery, famed abolitionist Harriet Tubman escaped to Philadelphia in 1849, returning to the South rescue family members and eventually a total of approximately 70 enslaved people via the Underground Railroad, a network of safe houses.

Cynthia Erivo, who stars as Tubman, brought home acting nominations from the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild.

How accurate is it? Fairly.

A story in Slate says the filmmakers "take some considerable liberties with both the timeline of events and the creation of several characters."

And director Kasi Lemmons told USA Today the film's creators took creative liberties in fleshing out the character of her slave owners vengeful grandson, Gideon.

Now streaming on several HBO platforms.

This Netflix documentary series definitely makes good on the Intro to History implications of its title. Each episode is ahistory mini-lessonconsisting of archival footage, facts and graphs about various topics.

Since the series premiered in May, those mini-lessons have included episodes on fast food, the space race, the rise of China, plastics, oil and the Middle East, robots, feminism, nuclear power and genetics.

A review of the series at Ready Steady Cut! concluded "History 101" season 1 is worth a binge it wont take long and you may learn something new."

Jamie Hyneman (left) and Adam Savage, hosts of the Discovery Channel show 'MythBusters.'(Photo: Handout courtesy of Discovery Channel)

This show is a blast quite often literally.

In its first nine seasons, 12 tons of explosives were used as special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman employed the scientific method to test the validity of urban legends, rumors, myths, adages, movie scenes, videos and news.

The duo used a two-step method of replicating the circumstances tosee if they could duplicate the alleged results. By the end of each episode, the myths were rated busted,plausibleor confirmed.

The series premiered in 2003 on the Discovery Channel and ran through 2016 before being revived in 2017 with new hosts on the Science Channel. The original series is streaming now on Hulu.

The human body is the focus of this British children's television series, hosted by twin brothers Dr. Chris and Dr. Xand van Tulleken, who were joined in 2019 by a third host, Dr. Ronx.

In the interest of demystifying what happens in hospitals for younger viewers while explaining how our bodies work, the doctors undergo experiments on their own bodies.

Those experiments have ranged from scrambling their own brain signals to show how they control body movements to charting what happens to food in the digestive tract with a special camera pill.

So yes, it has been known to get a little gross. You'll find out the medical uses of maggots, for instance.

Each episode also follows children admitted to hospitalwards from diagnosis to recovery.

Marie Curie (Rosamund Pike) at work in the lab in a scene from 'Radioactive.'(Photo: Laurie Sparham)

"Radioactive" tells the inspiring tale of Marie Curie and the pioneering work she did that resulted in Curie becoming the first woman to be honored with a Nobel Prize.

Filmed in Hungary with great costuming and a brilliant performance from Rosamund Pike in the title role, it touches on the discrimination she faced as a Polish woman in Paris as well as her struggles to be heard in the male-dominated scientific community.

Scientific American said it portrayed Curie as "a woman of the future."

However, somehave criticized the film for taking far too much creative license with the truth, inspiring STEM on Stage to compile a list of historic inaccuracies.

Parents should also know that it contains brief nudity.

Streaming now on Prime Video.

This PBS series is hosted by a physicist named Dr. Derek Muller, who spends each episode unlocking the mysteries as well as explaining the history and uses of uranium, one of Earth's most controversial elements.

In Part 1: The Rock That Became a Bomb, Muller explores how uranium becomes lead in the process of radioactive decay, the harmful effects of radiation and the use of uranium as a nuclear weapon.

The episode ends with the bombing of Hiroshima at the end of World War II.

In Part 2: The Rock That Changed the World, he looks at the use of uranium in cancer treatment and visits Chernobyl and Fukushima, where nuclear disasters have occurred.

Did you know that dinosaurs didn't roar? Or that astronauts shrink in space? I can almost guarantee you didn't know that in 16th Century England, it was considered good luck to throw shoes at the bride and groom at weddings? THAT'S who throws a shoe.

Whether hunting for dinosaur fossils or flying planes, the science-loving Engelman siblings that host this National Geographic Kids series explore the weird but true science that makes this world or in the case of shrinking astronauts, this universe a fascinating place.

This show is clearly aimed at younger kids, who should respond well to the goofy children's-entertainer energy the Engelmans invest in making learning fun and often funny (if admittedly seven miles over-the-top for viewers past a certain age).

Jeff Goldblum: Oct. 22, 1952.(Photo: Monica Schipper/Getty Images)

The premise of this series is as quirky as the host himself.

He prepares for an episode by doing as little research as humanly possible on the topic at hand, from ice cream to RVs, relying instead on his ownunderstanding of the topicjust from living in this world.

But there's a method to this seeming madness, as the actor explained at a panel reported by IGN,

"I kind of encounter interesting people around these subjects and you see me, you go along with me, if you're so inclined, and we have this experience together," he said. "That's the idea. Its all a surprise to me. I don't even meet the people, see the places, before they turn on the camera. Its all me kind of like a chick popping out of its shell."

Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Follow him on Twitter @EdMasley.

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