Who says that educational television has to be boring? Granted, the Discovery channel did not start off with much differentiating itself from those ever so boring biology videos seen during high school. Everyone knows them, the ones with the monotonous voice – normally with a slight British accent – explaining the origins of the slow moving fish that swam in circles bottom feeding for tiny specs of nourishment on the television screen. Life was hard enough without having to sit through those dull videos in school, unless of course you caught up on sleep or daydreamed about playing sports outside, far, far away from the classroom.

But in the last five years, the Discovery channel has really turned itself around. They’ve diversified their programming and added a few reality television themed shows. They’ve split off into many different channels on cable and satellite TV, focusing on such immense topics as animals (Animal Planet) and health (Discovery Health). They even have an entire channel filmed in HD. Yet, out of all of the changes and accomplishments that the Discovery channel has made in the last half decade, none of which compare to their finest achievement: “Planet Earth.” » Read more: Planet Earth: science, digital technology and making a difference