Miles From Tomorrowland Celebrates World Space Week

As most of you know I attended a special Disney. Pixar & Disney Junior event from September 29-October 2 in San Francisco to take part in a fun few days of exploring the movies, Inside Out, The Good Dinosaur and Miles From Tomorrowland. It was an amazing few days and it is my pleasure to share some of my experiences with you!

On the second day there we spent all day at Pixar exploring the Good Dinosaur as well as going to the Pixar archive and then going to a special event at GOOGLE for the Disney Junior series, Miles from Tomorrowland. I was really excited to have the opportunity to learn more about The Good Dinosaur, the Pixar Archive and Miles from Tomorrowland.

For those of you that have never watched the show Miles from Tomorrowland in the past there are some great new episodes coming up just in time for Halloween! This Saturday (October 10) offers you a Halloween-themed episode entitled: “Ghost Moon / Stormy Night in a Dark Nebula” and is premiering at 8:30 AM ET/PT on Disney Channel.

Episode Breakdown

“Ghost Moon” – The Callistos are sent to investigate eerie sightings on a dark moon.
“Stormy Night in a Dark Nebula” – The Callistos enter a dark nebula and find some spooky inhabitants.”

Here are a few clips from the show itself!

For the next seven weeks starting this Saturday October 10th, there will be new episodes of ” Miles from Tomorrowland ” paired with new episodes of “Captain Jake and the Never Land Pirates.: The episodes will premiere on Saturday mornings beginning at 8:00AM on Disney Channel and are included in a catch-up marathon on October 31.

One of the things that impresses me completely about the show is how it breaks down barriers. You see this in so many ways, form an inter-racial marriage to a woman being the captain to a daughter being interested in STEM fields and coding. All of these things are empowering for girls, but really for all kids and this for me is the power of the show (along with a great story and fun characters too).

Seeing that it is World Space Week I wanted this to be the first of the many posts that I will run as a recap from my experiences in California, so I hope that you will enjoy following along and living vicariously through me!

Today I am also sharing with you my thoughts on my visit to GOOGLE and on Miles from Tomorrowland. I hope that you will enjoy living vicariously through me as it was an amazing experience that not everyone gets to experience.

GOOGLE is such a cultural icon. It has been transformed from a company to a verb to something that no one can live without, so now saying that I was there was completely amazing. On top of this though, the reason I was there was because GOOGLE has partnered with Disney Junior and Sascha Paladnino to create Miles From Tomorrowland.

We had the opportunity to hear from an inspirational panel including Sascha Paladino creator of the show, Isis Anchalee Wenger of the #IlooklikeanEngineer movement, Angela Navarro and Julie Ann Crommett of GOOGLE, Dr. Yvonne Cagle of NASA, and Diane Ikemiyashiro of Disney Junior. Each of these panelists shared their own stories after lee Wenger we saw a clip from the show that shows Miles’ sister, Loretta, having to push through a defeat to go through a journey that led to ultimate success. In the end though, the episode really showed us a powerful female character that was respected, and that used science and math to get things done, and done well.

The panelists came to us with a message that talked about the show as well as the importance of encouraging girls to look at science careers. We started to hear from Sascha Paladino as he talked to all of us about his journey to this show. He talked about always wanting to go to outer space as a kid, but that instead he decided to make a show about a family that went into space. Why space you might ask? Well. Sascha Paladino mentioned that when he found out that he was going to be a dad of twins he panicked a bit, but then re-evaluated and thought to himself, what would be the greatest adventure for a family? His answer, going to outer space. He also said something that really stayed with me and that was that “the adventures that you have with your family are the most fantastic ones you can have.” I completely agree Mr. Paladino.

All of the panelists agreed that Miles from Tomorrowland provides you a wonderful exchange between STEM and learning and kids are allowed to learn without really knowing that they are learning which is part of the fun! As Diane Ikemiyashiro from Disney Junior mentioned, “we put the vitamins in the cake. It’s there, but unseen.”

Sascha Paladino told everyone that it was always his goal to break stereotypes in every way that could. This answered one of the questions that I had in regards to the multi-racial family that you see on the show. I, for one, am so glad that Sascha Paladino continues to challenge and try new things and I know that many others are similarly impressed.

One of the other moments that I will not forget was the passion shown from Isis Anchalee Wenger when she spoke about her journey from being pre-med to being a software engineer, even though everyone told her she should not. On top of this, she was featured in a campaign showing her in her profession and this really opened her to becoming an advocate for all girls to look at all of the ways that science and math intersect with our world. She does this through using the hashtag #ILookLikeAnEngineer and it lets others like herself share their stories so that other girls and women can see that they are not alone.

Julie Ann Crommett from GOOGLE shared that they did a study on this and in it the number one reason that girls chose to not go into a science or math career was because of a lack of adult encouragement. This did not mean that they were told not to go into the field, but they simply had no encouragement.

Going back to the Miles from Tomorrowland show, one of the other things that I really appreciated, as a father of two girls was having a mom on the show that was the Captain of the ship as well as a strong role model for any girl that may be watching. I also appreciated that Sascha Paladino did not create another bumbling dad character, but instead a dad that compliments his wife with a different set of skills. You also see that Miles and Loretta look up to their parents which is a great model for kids to experience.

All-in-all I am so impressed with what we learned about Miles From Tomorrowland as well as the support that GOOGLE is giving to create a show that is working to bring forth more people that have a love of science and math in the future. If you and your family has never seen this before, I highly encourage it!