Many different instruments have been devised to extend the limits of the eye, the "window to the mind" - the telescope to penetrate the infinite limits of space, the microscope to penetrate the finite limits of matter, and the camera to record what "the searching eye," aided or unaided, has found. All learning, all thinking, all doing of human beings starts first with sight.
Throughout this film, the simple actions of a ten-year-old boy provide visual metaphors of the normally unseen world. When he drops a rock on the beach, the camera shows the "constructive violence and destructive beauty" of volcanic eruptions. As the boy chases and imitates birds, we see that "imitation is the beginning of learning." When the film ends, the boy has seen much, but it is what he cannot see that adds a profound dimension to the program. A perfect stimulus to creative thinking, this classic film succeeds on many levels.