Whether you are teaching a virtual or in person classroom KLRN is excited to continue to offer monthly TEKS-aligned teacher resources for you to utilize in your lesson planning.
For additional resources check out these links:
- PBS Teacher Planning Kit
- Bilingual Resources to help Young Children Deal with Weather Emergencies
- Free KLRN Teacher Trainings (TEKS Aligned and CPE Credit awarded)
NOVA: Australia's First 4 Billion Years: Strange Creatures
Air Date: Thursday, April 1 at 1pm on 9.2 Stream Episode Here
PreK-2nd Grade
- Paws for a Minute: Tree Kangaroo and Support Materials for Students
Learn about tree kangaroos — where they live in the wild, features of their habitat, and how their specific physical features and feeding behaviors help them survive. (This original, one-minute video was produced by Rhode Island PBS, in association with Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, RI.)
Grades 1-5
- Kickboxing Kangaroo Main Event
Watch along with the Kratt brothers as they see how kangaroos fight to become the leader of the group and for their survival. Viewers see the fighting stance that the kangaroo takes and how they are able to use their large tails for balance!
Grades 6-12
- NOVA: Australia's First Four Billion Years: The Evolution of Kangaroos
Learn about the evolutionary history of the kangaroo, the only large mammal that hops, in this video excerpt from NOVA. Host and scientist Richard Smith explores how kangaroos may have evolved from tree-loving, possum-like ancestors. Mammalogist Tim Flannery describes his discovery of an ancient ankle bone that may be the key to figuring out the kangaroo story. The shape of the bone locks the ankle bone together; an ankle that is less flexible and does not twist upon impact may explain the evolution of hopping. The musky rat kangaroo is the closest surviving relative to the first kangaroo and seems more like a possum than a kangaroo.
Power Trip: The Story of Energy: Cities
Air Date: Wednesday, April 7 at 12pm on 9.2
Grades 1-5
- Energy Vampires
An "energy vampire" is an electronic device that drinks power even when it is not being used. Like computers in standby mode or chargers that are done charging. Spooky, huh? Take a look at this slideshow, from The Greens, and slay the energy vampires in your house! The Greens is a website for kids from WGBH about sustainability and green living.
Grades 5-8
- The Future of Energy: Energy Basics
Electrical power is produced and distributed through three simple steps: generation, transmission, and distribution. Learn more with this video from Explore More: The Future of Energy series.
Grades 9-12
- Resourcefulness: Introduction to the Energy-Water Nexus
In this short video, Dr. Michael Webber of the University of Texas at Austin introduces students and teachers to the energy-water nexus, the complex and cross-cutting relationship between energy and water in modern society. Dr. Webber presents one of the great challenges of the next generation of leaders: to think critically about issues related to energy and water and to seek inspiration for new ideas for these precious resources. Be resourceful!
SciGirls: Frog Whisperers
Air Date: Thursday, April 8 at 1:30 pm on 9.2 Stream Episode Here
Grades PreK-3
- How a Frog Becomes a Frog
Everyday Learning Many animals look like tiny versions of their parents when they’re born, but not frogs! Follow our narrator and her grandpa as they observe a frog's life cycle or events leading up to our amphibian friend, the frog, becoming a frog.
Grades 3-5
- Monster Frog Function Machine and Lesson Plan
A "Cyberchase" clip in which the Cybersquad has to figure out a pattern of input and output to stop a mechanical frog that's intended to hop over to Motherboard's CPU and destroy it.
Grades 6-12
- NOVA: Frozen Frogs
In this video adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, learn how the common wood frog survives the cold winter. Wood frogs are found in the northern United States and Canada and must endure freezing cold temperatures for parts of the year. In order to survive the cold, they have a special adaptation—they are able to freeze solid without damaging their cells. Sugar acts like a natural antifreeze in their bodies, allowing them to spend the winter frozen and then resume function in the spring. This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions.
Finding Your Roots “The New World” with John Lithgow and Maria Hinojosa
Air Date: Tuesday, April 13 at 7pm on 9.1 Stream Episode Here
Grades 4-12
- Finding Your Roots: The Seedlings | Episode 1: Genetics and Genealogy Camp Overview
Penn State University Anthropologist/Paleobiologist Dr. Nina Jablonski and “Finding Your Roots'' series host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. provide an introduction to what campers will explore during the Finding Your Roots: The Seedlings Genetics & Genealogy Camp.
Nature “The Leopard Legacy”
Air Date: Wednesday, April 14 at 7pm on 9.1 Stream Episode Here
Grades 3-12
- Night Vision
If you have ever stumbled through the woods on a moonless night, you may have wondered how nocturnal creatures move about with such apparent ease. Explore some of the most important adaptations of the nocturnal eye and highlights the nighttime habits of a range of creatures that rely on these adaptations, in this interactive from NOVA.
NOVA MAKING NORTH AMERICA: LIFE
Air Date: Tuesday, April 20 at 1pm on 9.2 Stream Here
Grades 6-12
- NOVA: Making North America
In this collection, you'll find original short-form videos from Making North America’s three episodes, Origins, Life, and Human. These media resources help educators to investigate North America’s amazing geology in detail with their students—from the oldest rocks on the continent (3.5 billion years!) to the potential earthquake catastrophe that lies within the Cascadia subduction zone in the Pacific Northwest. For additional classroom activities, check out the Making North America Interactive Map and the associated Educator’s Guide.
Grades 9-12
- EONS
This explores the history of life on Earth, from the dawn of life in the Archaean Eon though the Mesozoic Era — the so-called "Age of Dinosaurs" — right up to the end of the most recent Ice Age. Hank Green hosts, alongside paleontologist Kallie Moore and science writer Blake de Pastino. They discuss the evolutionary history of mammals, including humans and other species.
Finding Your Roots “Laughing on the Inside” with Lewis Black and Roy Wood, Jr.
Air Date: Tuesday, April 20 at 7pm on 9.1 Stream Episode Here
Grades 4-12
- Finding Your Roots: The Seedlings
Inspired by the popular PBS series "Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr." and shot on the campus of Penn State University, "Finding Your Roots: The Seedlings" follows 13 young people in a genetics and genealogy camp as they explore their family history and DNA ancestry with techniques never before used in an educational setting.
Illustrative Math
Air Date: Tuesday, April 27 at 11am on 9.2
Grades 3-6
- Math Magic: Math Mess Magic or math?
Marko the Magnificent has one more trick up his sleeve, see if he impresses you with his math magic. Use your mental math skills to calculate your answer then see if you can figure out the secret to this trick.
Grades 6-12
- Ancient Math & Music
Explore how Pythagoras and Plato found mathematics in music and nature in this video from NOVA: The Great Math Mystery. The ancient Greeks identified three pleasing musical intervals: an octave, a fifth, and a fourth. Pythagoras discovered that the beautiful musical relationship between the notes was also a mathematical relationship: the harmonious sounds are produced by vibrating strings with particular ratios of string length. Plato believed geometry and mathematics exist in their own ideal world and that certain shapes (now known as the Platonic solids) were associated with the classical elements from which the world was made: earth, fire, air, water, and the universe.