Every so often, a television show comes along that transcends the normal expectations we place on our entertainment and becomes so much more. For our family, one of those shows is Cyber Chase.
Matt, Inez, and Jackie are three average kids from Earth who have been asked for help by Motherboard, the ruler of Cyberspace. She is missing important parts in order to keep functioning, and is in danger of shutting down. The Hacker is an evil villain who wants ultimate power of Cyberspace, and spends all his time concocting nefarious plans to overthrow Motherboard. Each episode takes place on a different website as the children zoom through portals on the Web to see what nefarious plan The Hacker has hatched up now.
At first glance a show about children running around to save Cyberspace, it’s really a show about math. The children have to solve every day math problems in order to defeat The Hacker, with everything from decimals to fractions, estimating to averaging.
As a homeschooling mother, I sometimes struggle to find ways to verbalize concepts in a way my children can understand. I can see it so clearly in my head, but conveying that knowledge to someone else is tricky and can be frustrating. Cyber Chase takes those concepts and puts them into everyday applications, showing how a negative number works or what comprises a decimal. I’ve often found myself saying, “Remember how The Hacker stole all the Mother’s Day flowers? The math we’re doing today is just like that episode.” With no other explanation needed, my children pick up their pencils and correctly complete the page of problems. They have the picture in their minds and they understand how the numbers should fall into place.
Besides, this show is a lot of fun. The Hacker is voiced by Christopher Lloyd, and Digit, the robot bird who helps the children, is voiced by Gilbert Gottfried. Every website the children visit is fun and unusual, and parents can enjoy the action too.
Tristi’s scores: 9 for entertainment, 10 for education, and the Parent Annoyance Factor is 0.