Disney's new online course teaches you the secrets of creating a theme park — and it's free
![Disney's new online course teaches you the secrets of creating a theme park — and it's free](https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjkxNzgzMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTcyNDc1NDA1OH0.7MUKk9_Q5kUPXTJXrJzVwB5onRZxAMQ3rlFyGJueaMU/img.jpg?width=1200&height=800&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C1008%2C0%2C1008)
Ever wished you could be one of the people who creates Disney theme park attractions? Disney has released a fantastic online course that teaches you how its famous Imagineers work their magic. The class also lets you take a shot at creating your own.
Imagineering in a Box comes at a perfect time when children are stuck at home and schools are closed across the country. It's a great way to stimulate their imagination while teaching valuable science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills.
The online course was created in a partnership with Pixar and The Khan Academy.
The curriculum includes 35 online videos featuring actual Imagineers and their projects.
via Khan Academy
The course is a great way to inspire you and your family's creative spirit. It's also a lot of fun to learn the secret techniques that Disney uses to create its signature magic.
One great technique they use — that can cross-apply to countless other disciplines — is "Blue Sky" brainstorming. At the beginning of creating something new Imagineers let their imaginations soar as far as they like to come up with the most amazing ideas possible. Cost and practicality are not a concern.
The three main topics of the course are "Creating worlds," Designing attractions," and Bringing characters to life."
In each section, actual Imagineers explain in detail how they apply their craft. After watching the videos, course-takers can try their hand at designing attractions, characters, and creating environments.
The curriculum provides exercises to help you create your own land.
It also has a ride simulator for you to design your own roller coasters.
via Imagineering in a Box
Your new land and rise need characters. So it also has a simulator that lets you create animatronic characters for your attractions.
The videos include the behind-the-scenes work of creating actual attractions to use as examples.
The Imagineers featured in the video reveal that processes they use to create Cars Land at California Adventure, Pandora: The Land of Avatar in Disney's Animal Kingdom, and Treasure Cove in Shanghai Disneyland.
The videos do a great job of explaining how STEM skills are invaluable tools that bring Disney's art and imagination into reality.
You may have a great idea for a roller coaster, but it takes a team of engineers to figure out how to move 700 people a day through the ride safely.
Disney Imagineers want to see the wonderful creations of those who take the online course.
So, after you're done creating a spectacular theme park, you can upload your work to Instagram using #Disney, #BetterTogether, and #ImagineeringinaBox; and tag @WaltDisneyImagineering. Some responses will be shared on the official Walt Disney Imagineering Instagram page.
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Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
.This article originally appeared on 04.27.16