how how old do you think a kid has to be to appreciate cosmos?

I first watched Cosmos when I was 12. My mom found the VHS tapes and we all watched it together... I remember that I liked it a lot, but looking back I don't think I truly appreciated it for the masterpiece that it was. I would say that a freshman in high school would be old enough to fully appreciate this series.

Teenage kids are so dumb.

So I would expect high school kids to not even appreciate it, even adults wont appreciate it.

Its all dependent on the person you are showing it to.

A young kid will probably not appreciate it simply because they are too young.

since its birth. just play it on as background hypnopedia.
one thing he/she will not be when it grow up is a dumbass.

@jokk3r

It really depends on the child, their intelligence and curiosity level.

About ten years ago, I watched it (again) with my granddaughter (at age 10) and my grandson (aged 8), her first cousin, and they both loved it and drove me crazy with follow up questions. Last year I showed Cosmos to my other grandson (aged 9) and his cousin (aged 8), also my granddaughter. This grandson, like his brother, loved the Cosmos series, but my youngest granddaughter was completely uninterested. You just never know. You have to show it to the children, they'll let you know.

I think the Cosmos series should be required viewing for all high school students.



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I don't think I ever could have fully appreciated Cosmos as a kid. Sure, I might have liked it (I was 8 in 1980 when it premiered, but I never got around to watching it because the only PBS I watched was during the day for shows like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Electric Company, and 3-2-1 Contact. Cosmos is designed for adult minds, and even though I was vastly intelligent for my age, I wasn't yet ready for the nuanced view of humanity's place in the cosmos Sagan presented. In fact, even though it had the glorious astronomy I held so dear as a child, I likely would have found it boring because it was presented at a ponderous and tranquil pace, something I couldn't have savored until my 30s. But that was the route of my own personal voyage.

And lo, I watched Cosmos finally, recently, at age 37, and I was ready. I loved it. I fully understood it...not just the science, which is easy, but the deeper meaning Sagan addresses concerning just how amazing, breathtaking, and fragile life is in our universe, and since I watched long after the zeitgeist of the late 70s that permeated the show (especially the Cold War and threat of nuclear war), I was fully able to appreciate the significant geopolitical changes that have come since then (some of which Sagan addressed in his episodic updates done 10 years later on the 20th Anniversary edition on DVD), along with the amazing scientific discoveries we've made since then (some addressed, some not, as they came after Sagan's untimely death). What really amazed me is how well the show stands up after 30 years...some of the science is out of date, but not usually by much, and it's interesting to see just how far back the global warming fears began to permeate the scientific community, considering that I was still a teenager in the late 80s when the concern about CFCs and the ozone hole over the Antarctic became a big story. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As so many posters have already said, it depends on the kid.

I'm sure an eight-year old could get quite a bit out of it. But there are many factors besides age which come to bear on one's reception, like religious or political indoctrination. There's plenty of adults who, for these sorts of reasons, are incapable of appreciating Cosmos.

§« The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. »§

Actually, if we consider that mean age for children to develop an abstract way of thinking is 8 years old; from that point on we can teach them about almost EVERYTHING, it only depends on how interested the parents'll be for teaching their children. For example: my two daughters have been exposed to "Infoxication" since they were tots, and now they are able to understand much more than the average teenager. It's a skill you can train, just like any sport.

I was 16 when I watched my first episode of Cosmos. I'm 17 now. The moment it started, I couldn't take my eyes off of the screen. I was slightly crying by the end of the episode. Not in a bad or weird way, but because Sagan had affected me like no other. To me, the show was a masterpiece, a culmination of art (the beautifully written narrations, the shots used to exemplify Sagan's narrations) and science (which is a given as to how it's used in the show).
Sagan not only explained mysteries of the universe in somewhat layman's terms, but he also enchanted, and mystified the beauty of it all. Sagan not only answered common questions, but philosophies as well. Sagan not only spoke about the insignificance of the human kind, he also talked about the importance of man.
Cosmos might appeal to people in different ways, but to me, it was an intelligent, artistic, and beautiful ode to life and the universe.