Dear Educators,
As the school year begins with many uncertainties we want you to know that KLRN is here for you. We welcome your input at education@klrn.org regarding ways that KLRN can offer the resources that you need for your classroom.
For this school year KLRN will continue to provide free teacher trainings that will highlight our PBS LearningMedia site which has a wealth of TEKS aligned lesson plans and resources to use in your in person or virtual classroom. We also have our monthly educator e-newsletter where we will feature resources for each grade level along with our bi-monthly blog post with links to streaming videos and lesson plans.
We look forward to working with you this year as we all navigate through a very different school year.
With Appreciation,
The KLRN Education Team
Hispanic Heritage Awards
Air Date on 9.1: Tuesday, October 6 at 7pm
Celebrate the recipients of the annual Hispanic Heritage Awards. The evening includes performances and appearances by some of the country's most celebrated Hispanic artists and visionaries.
Grades 4-12
What are the stories of U.S. Latinos and how do they inform the broader American narrative? From southern Florida to the San Juan Islands of Washington state, from the pre-history of the nation through today's most contentious issues, Latino experiences illuminate our country’s history and its struggle to live up to its ideals. This collection of lesson plans, videos and classroom resources invites teachers and students to explore the history, people and issues chronicled in the PBS series, Latino Americans. Along the way, it engages students in dramatic real-life stories and offers primary texts that serve the goals of the Common Core.
Latino Vote: Dispatches from the Battleground
Air Date on 9.1: Tuesday, October 6 at 8pm
Get an inside look at the high-stakes effort to get out the Latino vote in this year's election. Political candidates are focused on maximizing turnout and support from Latinos, poised to be the largest non-white voting bloc.
Grades 3-7
Cesar Chavez: Labor Leader and Civil Rights Activist & Video: Cesar Chavez
In this lesson, students will learn about the remarkable organizational skills of Cesar Chavez. In addition to watching a biographical video, they will analyze a photograph of Chavez during a protest against grape growers, and they will read a speech in which Chavez reflects on the accomplishments of the farm workers’ movement. They will then evaluate how Chavez’s tactics could be adapted to a current day labor-related issue.
Grades 5-9
The Unsung History Makers: Maria Moreno
In this interactive lesson, use primary and secondary sources such as video and audio to unravel the mystery of Maria Moreno, a woman who fought for farm labor rights before Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta formed the United Farm Workers. Then search out an unsung history maker in your own community!
Grades 5-12
Latino Public Broadcasting Education Collection
The programs of Latino Public Broadcasting are produced for dissemination to public broadcasting stations and other public media entities. Providing a voice for the diverse Latino community throughout the United States, Latino Public Broadcasting is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In addition, LPB produces the acclaimed PBS documentary series VOCES, featuring the best of Latino arts, culture and history.
Asian Americans: Breaking Ground
Air Date on 9.2: Tuesday, October 6 at 1pm
Asian Americans is a five-hour film series that delivers a bold, fresh perspective on a history that matters today, more than ever. As America becomes more diverse, and more divided while facing unimaginable challenges, how do we move forward together? Told through intimate personal stories, the series will cast a new lens on U.S. history and the ongoing role that Asian Americans have played.
Grades 4-6
Women Advancing Equality: Asian Americans
Throughout her life, Patsy Mink faced obstacles because she was Asian and female. Mink joined the Democratic Party in order to fight for equality and change. While Mink wanted to run for the House of Representatives to represent Hawaii, she did not get the support of the decision-makers of the Democratic Party and lost the election. But Mink did not give up her pursuit of a political career. In 1964, she was elected to Congress in her second attempt. In Congress, she co-authored Title IX, a law to ensure that no one will be discriminated against in education and federally-funded activities based on gender. In addition to working on Title IX, Mink also fought racial barriers by supporting civil rights legislation.
Redefine American: Asian Americans
Mamie Tape, born in the U.S., is one of the earliest Asian Americans. Her parents, Joseph and Mary, were self-made, entrepreneurial Chinese immigrants. Her father found a way to continue a thriving business as a broker despite the anti-Chinese atmosphere. In claiming the rights and privileges of an American citizen for their daughter, the Tapes tried to enroll Mamie in an all-white school in San Francisco in 1884. When Mamie was denied entry because she was Chinese, the Tapes brought her legal case, Tape v. Hurley (1885), to the California Supreme Court, similar to the more famous Brown v. Board of Education (1954), these cases contested the racial segregation of schools.
Grades 7-12
Racial Identity and American Citizenship in the Court: Asian Americans
Beginning in the 1800s, Asian American immigrants faced intensifying hostility, discrimination, and even exclusion from the United States.
The case of Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) is a particularly important case in U.S. legal and immigration history, in how we perceive race and citizenship. Bhagat Singh Thind was from the Punjab region of India who came to the United States as a young man and joined the army, serving during World War I. After the war he sought to become a naturalized citizen. During this period the United States Caucasians were permitted to appeal for citizenship, and Bhagat Sign Thind sought citizenship, through a legal process that he where he claimed he was white. This legal fight went all the way to the Supreme Court. Ultimately, the Court found that even though he was Caucasian, he was not white.
Nature: The Story of Cats: Asia and Africa
Air Date on 9.1: Wednesday, October 7 at 7pm
Discover how the first cats arose in the forests of Asia, how they spread across the continent and later came to conquer Africa. We reveal how cats evolved with an in-depth look at lions, servals, caracals, cheetahs, tigers, fishing and sand cats.
Link to Video Player: Nature: The Story of Cats Asia and Africa (available until 11/2)
Grades 3-12
This video segment from Nature describes cats as independent, mysterious and aloof. While they have been domesticated for more than four thousand years, they are still powerful predators and survivalists. Cats have a reputation for being uncontrollable and leading solitary lifestyles, yet they compete with dogs as the most popular pet in America. Cats live in thirty percent of American households; however, they still demonstrate characteristics of creatures of the wild. Their hunting habits, for example, parallel those of lions, cheetahs and tigers.
Grades 6-12
Animal Adaptations: Fishing Cat
Learn how the semi-aquatic fishing cat evolved millions of years ago to live in the wetlands of South and Southeast Asia in this video from NATURE: The Story of Cats. The accompanying activity prompts students to write an argument-based essay about the impact of environmental changes in Asia millions of years ago on the fishing cat population.
This video segment from Nature provides a background of the history of cats. Over the ages, human beings have viewed cats as both godlike and as demons. In the year 2500 BC in Ancient Egypt, cats were revered and then mummified once they died. These mummies are being studied today. In the Middle Ages, cats were seen as evil demons associated with witchcraft. Cats became welcome household pets when rats became a problem. We also learn about wild cats on the Galapagos Islands and how cats came to America from Europe as rat catchers on commercial vessels.
Nature: NOVA: Eagle Power
Air Date on 9.2: Wednesday, October 7 and Saturday, October 10 at 11am
What makes eagles so remarkable? Researchers study one special bird, revealing her exceptional strength, eyesight and flying skills. Meanwhile, in-the-nest footage of a new bald eagle family captures the drama of chicks struggling to survive.
Grades PreK-1
This video segment from Between the Lions is a live action, non-fiction piece about what life would be like "if you were a bald eagle." It shows where eagles are born, what they eat, and how bald eagles lose their feathers at the age of one month-- until they become fledglings. At three months, eagles begin flying and learning how to catch food. At four or five years old, their heads and tail feathers are white. Male ealges stretch their wings to six feet, female eagles are bigger and can stretch their wings to eight feet. Adult eagles have babies called eaglets. The vocabulary words featured in this video include: bald eagle, aerie, fledgling, soar, wings, nest, and eaglets. This video segment provides a resource for Text Comprehension, Vocabulary, and Language and Vocabulary Development.
Grades 2-3
Growth and Development of Organisms: Eagles
This lesson from Nature uses the eagle to model universal avian life stages. Students learn that living things experience diverse lifecycles. For example, baby birds go through distinct stages as they grow up into adult birds. This lesson uses the eagle to model universal avian life stages: from egg, to chick, to fledgling juvenile, to adult.
Grades 5-12
Learn about bald eagles and listen as Wildlife Center of Virginia staff members discuss species conservation successes, as well as the threats that eagles still face today, including lead poisoning and vehicle collisions. Buddy, the Wildlife Center's non-releasable Bald Eagle ambassador, is featured.
Age of Nature: Awakening
Air Date on 9.1: Wednesday, October 14 at 9pm
Discover how a new awareness of nature is helping to restore ecosystems from Panama to China to Mozambique. See how innovative actions are being taken to repair man-made damage and restore reefs, rivers, animal populations and more.
Link to Video Player for Age of Nature: Awakening (available 10/14 to 10/28)
Grades PreK-3
The Science of Gardening and Ecosystems: What's Good
Every living thing is part of an ecosystem. An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms. It’s how the living and nonliving things in the environment — like air, soil, water, sun — work together to allow plants, animals, and people to survive and thrive. Gardening, tending to the environment, and observing and interacting with nature can help kids understand their relationship with the earth and our responsibility to take care of it and each other. We all grow best when we grow together!
Grades 5-12
Ecosystem Services: Biodiversity Course
Why is biodiversity important? Explore how healthy ecosystems provide crucial direct, indirect, and aesthetic-ethical benefits to humans.
Supernature: Wild Flyers: Masters of the Sky
Air Date on 9.2: Wednesday, October 14 at 11am
Many animals take to the skies for a split second, but to stay there, the planet's strongest flyers push the laws of physics to the limit. Explore the extremes of true flight: power, acceleration, top speed, maneuverability and endurance.
Grades 3-8
Design Squad: Pop Fly Challenge
Invent a way to send a Ping-Pong ball flying high enough to catch it, in this activity from Design Squad Nation: Pumped. Take some paint stirrers, a wooden spool, and tape. Now, add your foot. Ready, set, launch!
Grades 6-12
Nature: A Murder of Crows: As the Crow Flies
In this video from Nature, researchers test whether crows have the ability to pass information on to other crows as well as their young. The study focuses on several crows and tracks them through their first year of life. In the experiment, researchers wear a mask signifying danger and track how the crows communicate that danger to one another and to their young. They then try to discover if the young crows will use the information and remember the "dangerous" face in the future once they have left the nest. This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions.
Supernature: NOVA: Touching the Asteroid
Air Date on 9.1: Wednesday, October 21 at 8pm
If spacecraft OSIRIS-REx can grab a piece of an asteroid and bring it back to Earth, scientists could gain great insight into our planet's origins, and even how to defend against rogue asteroids. But NASA only gets three shots at collecting a sample.
Link to Video Player for NOVA: Touching the Asteroid (available 10/21 through 11/3)
Grades PreK-3
Asteroids, Meteors, and Meteorites: Ready Jet Go!
What are the differences between asteroids, meteors, and meteorites? In this clip from Ready Jet Go!, Jet and the gang travel through the breathtaking Asteroid Belt (with the help of Mrs. Propulsion!). Sean learns that not all asteroids stay in the Belt, and that some actually make their way to Earth. Most of them burn up in the Earth's atmosphere and turn into meteors in the sky. Pretty!
Grades 3-6
Asteroids & Comets: Science Trek
Asteroids are small, rocky objects left over from the formation of our solar system. Comets are leftovers too, made of dust, rock and ice. These small worlds can tell us what the early solar system was like. On this Science Trek, host Joan Cartan-Hansen and her guests, Brian Jackson and Camille Eddy of Boise State University, will answer students’ questions about asteroids and comets.
Grades 6-12
Learn about Earth's close encounter with asteroid 2012 DA14 on February 15, 2013, in this video from NASA. Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed safely about 17,000 miles (27,000 kilometers) from Earth's surface. Its orbit was well known and scientists were not worried about a possible collision. NASA observes and tracks near-Earth objects to look for impact threats and carry out scientific study. In the future, near-Earth objects could be used as sources of raw materials. The largest impact event on Earth in recorded history occurred in 1908 in Tunguska, Russia, when an object about the size of 2012 DA14 exploded in the atmosphere. This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions. This resource is part of the NASA Planetary Sciences Collection.
Illustrative Math (for Middle School)
Air Date on 9.2: Tuesday, October 20 from 11am to 1pm
In this collection of four 30-minute programs, viewers will learn about unique approaches to teaching and learning 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math as well as algebra.
Grades PreK-9
This collection of lesson plans uses dance, drama, music, and visual arts to teach math concepts.
Gilded Age: American Experience
Air Date on 9.2: Tuesday, October 20 at 1 PM & Friday, October 30 at 8 PM
Meet the titans and barons of the glittering late 19th century, whose materialistic extravagance contrasted harshly with the poverty of the struggling workers who challenged them. The vast disparities between them sparked debates still raging today.
Grades 3-7
Mark Twain: Storyteller, Novelist, and Humorist
In this lesson, students will learn about Mark Twain’s career as a journalist, novelist, and humorist. After viewing a video about his life, students will examine a caricature of Twain from the humor magazine Puck and will read a letter he wrote to a close friend and fellow author. The lesson concludes with students writing a Twain-style piece about a contemporary issue.
Grades 9-12
Defining the Era: The Gilded Age
Learn about the rapid economic leap that occurred in the late 19th century as America transformed into an industrial powerhouse, and the impact it had on the nation’s collective self-identity, in this video adapted from The Gilded Age: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. As some in society had amassed great wealth in the 30 years following the end of the Civil War, many others struggled to pay their bills and feed their families. What had been a nation of small producers, skilled workers, and farmers, had been divided into the haves and have-nots.
NOVA: Prediction By The Numbers
Air Date on 9.2: Wednesday, October 21 at 12pm
Discover how predictions underpin nearly every aspect of our lives and why some succeed spectacularly while others fail. Explore entertaining real-world challenges and join experts as they tackle that age-old question: Can we forecast the future?
Grades 6-12
Nature: Can Animals Predict Disaster? - Destructive Forces
In this video segment from Nature, scientists question how animals mysteriously survive natural disasters. Hours before the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, elephants ran for higher ground, dogs refused to go outdoors, flamingos abandoned their breeding areas, and zoo animals rushed into their shelters. This mysterious behavior, coupled with the report of no mass animal deaths resulting, has renewed the common yet controversial theory that animals can sense imminent disaster. This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions.
Generation Nation: A PBS American Portrait Story
Air Date on 9.1: Monday, October 26 at 8:30pm
Explore how people in different age groups see themselves and their place in America. Through self-shot video, they share common experiences that bind age groups together and generational differences that put them at odds with one another.
Grades 6-12
Family of Us: Group Discussion & Storytelling Activity: PBS American Portrait
students will engage in a conversation (in-person or virtually) about what family is, what family means, and how a person’s concept of family might expand or shift with time. Students will reflect on their own family experiences and consider the qualities and traditions that define their families, whether biological or chosen. Students will work to expand their understanding of family through the stories presented in the clips above, guided discussion, and supplemental reading. To culminate, students will have the opportunity to create media sharing a meaningful story about their own family. Students’ stories add a critical perspective to our growing and more nuanced conversations about family and home. Students 13 years and older may share their stories to the PBS American Portrait platform.
Grades 6-12
Somos Testigos: PBS American Portrait
Este episodio, presentado por un grupo estelar de innovadores en tecnología digital de PBS —Glenda Lozada, Bobbi Starling, Laura Bradley y Mike Lang—, se centrará en la igualdad: cómo usamos la tecnología para destacar narraciones que reflejen la inclusión y para dialogar sobre la igualdad de género, la igualdad en la educación y la diversidad. La conversación, que se llevará a cabo en español, estará dirigida por Glenda Lozada, nuestra innovadora estelar en tecnología digital de Puerto Rico. Glenda nos contará cómo pueden los educadores emplear la serie American Portrait de PBS para ayudar a los alumnos a utilizar narraciones digitales para compartir sus experiencias. Glenda y sus alumnos, que vivieron los terremotos y huracanes que asolaron recientemente a Puerto Rico, nos permitirán dar un vistazo entre bastidores a lo que sucedió después de estas catástrofes. A través de sus ojos vamos a ser testigos de su vivencia completa, desde el impacto inicial hasta el proceso de recuperación.
NOVA: Bigger than T-Rex
Air Date on 9.2: Monday, October 26 at 11am
Almost a century ago, paleontologists found the first tantalizing hints of a monster even bigger than Tyrannosaurus Rex, perhaps the largest predator ever to walk the Earth: spectacular fossil bones from a dinosaur dubbed Spinosaurus. But the fossils were completely destroyed during a World War II Allied bombing raid, leaving only drawings, lots of questions, and a mystery: What was Spinosaurus? Now,the discovery of new bones in a Moroccan cliff face is reopening the investigation into this epic beast. What did it feed on and how? Why did it grow so big? We follow the paleontologists who are reconstructing this terrifying carnivore piece by piece, revealing a 53-foot-long behemoth with a huge dorsal sail, enormous, scimitar-like claws, and massive superjaws, tapered toward the front like a crocodile, hosting an army of teeth. It is a painstaking puzzle, and it is missing many of its pieces. NOVA follows researchers on the hunt for more fossils, tracing ancient history along with the very modern drama of how the bones of the Spinosaurus were discovered, seized, bombed, stolen and smuggled across international borders. Bringing together experts in paleontology, geology, climatology and paleobotany, this NOVA/National Geographic special brings to life the lost world over which Spinosaurus reigned more than 65 million years ago.
Grades PreK-3
Even Bigger than T-Rex! Dinosaur Train
In this Dinosaur Train video clip, children will learn to compare the height and size of the dinosaurs. Tiny and Buddy observe the differences between big and small creatures. Este video se centra en ayudar a niños para comparar la altura y el tamaño de los dinosaurios. Tiny y Buddy observan las diferencias entre las criaturas grandes y pequeñas.
Grades K-5
Dinosaur George: Museum in the Classroom Collection
From giant Texas reptiles, to dinosaurs and Ice Age mammals, students see firsthand some of the creatures that once roamed Texas and maybe even in their own backyard! Lessons cover Science and English/Language Arts/Reading standards, and all of the student activity sheets are available in both English and Spanish.
Grades 6-12
In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, learn how scientists are hoping to better understand the biology of dinosaurs by studying the insides of fossil bones. Hear about the accidental discovery of dinosaur soft tissue by paleontologist Dr. Mary Schweitzer, and how this tissue enables scientists to learn more about dinosaur physiology and pathology. For example, soft tissue could provide information about toxins that led to dinosaur deaths. This video is available in both English and Spanish audio, along with corresponding closed captions.
Age of Nature: Changing
Air Date on 9.1: Wednesday, October 28 at 9pm
Discover why restoring nature might be our best tool to slow global warming. From Borneo to Antarctica, the resilience of the planet is helping us find solutions to cope and even mitigate climate change, providing hope for a more positive future.
Link to video player for Age of Nature: Changing (available 10/28 through 11/11)
Grades 3-8
Why Does Climate Change Matter?
Hear young Native Americans talk about climate change. Listen as they respond to the question, "Why does climate change matter?" They share their opinions about the importance of climate; their thoughts on how climate change is affecting weather, oceans, and ice; and their fears about the impacts for future generations.
Grades 6-12
Weather is notoriously unpredictable. From one moment to the next, any of dozens of atmospheric variables can change to create a new weather event. In contrast, climate descriptions, which identify average and normal temperatures and precipitation levels, tend to be perceived as stable, at least over time scales that humans can easily relate to. However, that hasn't always been the case. This video segment adapted from NOVA describes climate data that suggest the Earth has undergone dramatic climate shifts in relatively short spans of time.