Week of July 27-31 Learning Materials

The Poison Squad
Clips, articles and digital shorts to support The Poison Squad.
By the close of the Industrial Revolution, the American food supply was tainted with frauds, fakes, and legions of new and untested chemicals, dangerously threatening the health of consumers. Based on the book by Deborah Blum, The Poison Squad tells the story of government chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley who, determined to banish these dangerous substances from dinner tables, took on the powerful food manufacturers and their allies.

FRONTLINE Antibiotic Resistance
These resources from FRONTLINE focus on issues related to antibiotic resistance and our food.

Friendship in the Animal Kingdom
Until recently, scientists were not comfortable describing bonds between animals as "friendships." However, scientists have now determined that humans are not the only animals who form them.

Unlikely Friends
This video segment from Nature: Animal Odd Couples showcases the relationship between Kasi, a cheetah, and Mtani, a dog. Kasi and Mtani live at Busch Gardens – both were "orphaned" when they were young and the keepers at Busch Gardens developed a pilot project to observe the relationship between them.

Mates for Life
This video segment from Nature: Animal Odd Couples introduces a male brant goose that has selected his lifelong mate: a female tortoise. Brant geese mate for life and the male goose's selection is a very unlikely companion, yet they have "been together" for years.

Unlikely Partners: Warthog and Mongoose
Learn about the unusual animal partnership between warthogs and mongooses in this video from the NATURE mini-series Spy in the Wild. Part of the episode “Friendship,” this video shows how two very different animals help one another in the African savannah.

Clinton American Experience
Clips, articles, teacher’s guide and more to support the four part series.
Clinton tells the story of a president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage.

Visit this collection from NASA Planetary Sciences to learn about Inner Worlds and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn and Ice Worlds.

What is a Planet?
Learn about the debate over the definition of a planet in this video from NOVA scienceNOW.

The Art of Forces and Motion
Students learn about Forces and Motion by creating art that helps them to visualize, identify and explain these phenomena.

NOVA: Making North America
How did the North American continent form and take the shape it is today? How did life evolve here? And how has Earth’s spectacular landscape shaped human lives and destinies? To answer these fundamental questions, NOVA’s 3-part Making North America series takes viewers on an epic road trip through deep time to witness the clash of nature’s creative and destructive forces that have shaped our land—tectonic collisions, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, grinding ice sheets, and massive asteroid impacts.

Country Music a film by Ken Burns collection
Country Music is a 16-hour series that chronicles the history of a uniquely American art form that rose from the experiences of remarkable people in distinctive regions of the United States. Through archival footage, photographs, and intimate interviews with musicians and scholars, the series offers the opportunity to explore key events in 20th century history, including technological changes, the Depression, and tensions around race and Civil Rights, all through the eyes of people who lived through them and the music they created.

Hampton Court Palace- Historic Royal Palaces
Experience the public dramas and private lives of Henry VIII, his wives and children in the world of the Tudor court. Admire Henry’s Great Hall, the infamous Haunted Gallery and the Tudor kitchens. Discover the spectacular baroque palace built for William III and Mary II and explore the magnificent gardens.

Inside the Court of Henry VIII
Take an in-depth look into the reign of King Henry VIII, King of England from 1509 to 1547—the second King in the Tudor dynasty.

Henry the VIII’s Early Years in Power Inside the Court of Henry VIII
In this clip from Inside the Court of Henry VIII learn about the role of social class at King Henry's court, and understand his early years on the throne.

Anne Boleyn’s Influence Inside the Court of Henry VIII
Learn about Anne Boleyn, King Henry VIII's second wife, and the role of women at the court of King Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn influenced King Henry's decision to both break from the Catholic Church and force Cardinal Wolsey out of power, pushing England towards the Act of Supremacy of 1534, which confirmed England's break with Rome and declared Henry the Supreme Head of the Church of England.
Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.

Home of Franklin D Roosevelt National Historic Site
Discover the Roosevelts, the family home, the Presidential library, Val-Kill, once a family picnic site it became Eleanor Roosevelt’s cottage and then primary residence.

The Roosevelts Ken Burns in the Classroom
Ken Burns in the Classroom- The Roosevelts
NO CC
Support Materials to use in tandem with the on air programming of The Roosevelts.

Theodore Roosevelt and the Western Experience
ExamineS the 26th president of the United States. TR or Teddy as he has come to be known, balanced his identity of an intellectual from the East with the frontiersman of the West. His love of nature as a boy carried on throughout his life, influencing policy decisions as president that we still see today.

Space Chase USA
Space Chase USA explores the transformative events residents of Cocoa Beach, Florida, found themselves engaged in as the future of space exploration arrived on their sleepy shores.The full Space Chase USA documentary is broken down into 20 chronological segments.

Moon Memories
The Space Coast history is especially rich because of the collective memories of the citizens. During the hectic space race days, the engineers were fueled by passion as they worked to accomplish Kennedy’s goal. Retired NASA employees and contractors share how they didn’t work a day in their lives.

Living and Working in Space Collection
No CC
This collection includes videos and digital media that have been selected to help bring the stories of human space exploration and its early history to you.

Voyager: Humanity’s Farthest Journey
In 1977, The Voyager program sent two spacecraft to explore the solar system and travel to interstellar space. In this video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, learn how Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are now the farthest any spacecraft has traveled from the Sun, and are still making discoveries in the outer reaches of the solar system.

Poppy Northcutt, NASA Pioneer, Chasing the Moon
Learn how Poppy Northcutt overcame sexism and a “boys’ club” atmosphere to become the first female engineer in NASA’s mission control in the 1960s—a situation she describes as a “complete peculiarity” at the time—in this video adapted from Chasing the Moon: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

Ed Dwight, First Black Astronaut Trainee
Hear Ed Dwight’s firsthand account of his experience and the challenges he faced as the nation’s first black astronaut trainee in this video adapted from Chasing the Moon: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE.

The Road to Apollo: An Interactive Journey
Discover the breathtaking failures and successes and the stakes and costs of the American space program as you take an immersive journey through Project Apollo’s missions 1, 8, and 11 in The Road to Apollo: An Interactive Journey from American Experience.

Exploring Racial Barriers at NASA
Decades after the enrollment of NASA’s first black astronauts, people of color are still a minority in aerospace. Dr. Bernard Harris, Jr., the first African American to perform a spacewalk, discusses challenging stereotypes with a young woman who dreams of planning a mission to Mars.

NOVA Newton’s Third Law of Motion
This video from NOVA illustrates the significance of Newton's law to space-walking astronauts and the engineers who design their spacecrafts.

Earthrise
Earthrise tells the story of the image captured of the Earth from space on Apollo 8 in 1968.

Mooncraters Activity
This DragonflyTV segment demonstrates how to make models of moon craters, and how craters form.

Phases of the Moon
In this interactive resource adapted from the National Air and Space Museum, learn about the relationship between the Moon's orbit and its phases.

Explore the Moon
These interactive images from NOVAprovide panoramic views of each of the six Apollo landing sites and offer a hint of what astronauts faced on the surface of the Moon.

Observing the Moon in the Sky
Observe images of the Moon during the day and night with this slideshow. The images can stimulate students’ thinking and questions about when and how the Moon appears in the sky.

Is There Life in Space?
In this module, you will explore the question, “Is there life in space?

Historic Space Suits
Explore how space suit design has evolved over time in this interactive slideshow from NOVA scienceNOW. This interactive activity requires Adobe Flash Player.

Light Falls: Space, Time and an Obsession of Einstein
Light Falls: Space, Time, and an Obsession of Einstein is an original work that celebrates the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's discovery of the general theory of relativity.

The Structure and Scale of the Solar System
Students learn about the structure and scale of the solar system, using media from NASA, in this interactive self-paced lesson from WGBH.

Surface Features in the Solar System
Students learn about surface features in the solar system, using media from NASA, in this self-paced interactive lesson from WGBH.

Achievements of Stephen Hawking Lesson Plan
Learn about Stephen Hawking - his personal history, his struggle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), his thought processes and how he developed his groundbreaking ideas about Black Holes, the Big Bang, and the discovery of Hawking Radiation.

Do Events Inside Black Holes Happen?
Join Gabe on this week’s episode of PBS Space Time as he debunks popular black hole misconceptions, and rethinks what the term, ‘black hole’, even means. Thought you knew what a black hole was? Think again!

Can We Time Travel
Use the discussion questions to stimulate conversation both before and after viewing with your family or connect with friends and get their perspective.

Are We Alone?
Use the following discussion questions to stimulate conversation both before and after viewing with your family or connect with friends and get their perspective.

Achievements of Stephen Hawking
In this lesson, students learn about Stephen Hawking - his personal history, his struggle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), his thought processes and how he developed his groundbreaking ideas about Black Holes, the Big Bang, and the discovery of Hawking Radiation.

What Are We?: Molecules
In this clip from Genius by Stephen Hawking, learn about molecules and their behavior on an atomic scale.

What are We?
In this clip from Genius by Stephen Hawking, learn about the process of evolution and how nature has adapted.

Light Years
In this video segment adapted from Shedding Light on Science, learn how light can be used to measure distance. Meet Kim McLeod, an astronomer at Wellesley College who studies some of the most distant objects in the universe.

Hubble Telescope Looking Deep
In this video segment adapted from the Space Telescope Science Institute, learn how the Hubble Space Telescope created this amazing picture of the early universe.

Hubble & The Expanding Universe
Learn how Edwin Hubble made some of the most important discoveries in modern astronomy in this video from NOVA: Invisible Universe Revealed.

How Big Is Our Universe?
This interactive resource from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics illustrates the immense scale of the universe and demonstrates some techniques astronomers use to measure distances.

Get the Math is about algebra in the real world. See how professionals use math in music, fashion, video games, restaurants, basketball, and special effects. Then take on interactive challenges related to those careers. Watch this intro video before trying one of the challenges below.

Math Mess
A "Math Mess" is an everyday problem that requires an inquisitive mind, determination and a little number sense to solve. Math Messes can pop up when you least expect them — and in each short, animated Math Mess video, you’ll meet some mathematically-challenged characters who are right smack in the middle of one.

Explore numerous lesson plans and activities around various episodes of Latino Americans. Explore this timeline of important dates, become a part of the LATINO AMERICANS project, Mi Historia.

Plastic in the Pacific QUEST
Examine the problem with the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch," in this QUEST video produced by KQED. Only about seven percent of the plastic used in the United States is recycled. Much of the rest ends up in landfills, or worse, oceans.

Global Ocean Circulation
In this video from NOVA: “Earth From Space,” learn about patterns of global ocean circulation, which distribute heat around the planet.

The Role of Ocean Currents in Climate
This ThinkTV segment demonstrates that ocean surface currents have a major impact on regional climate around the world, and explores the role of these currents in the creation of climate zones.

Robotic Sampling Systems Ocean Exploration: Inner Space
Robotic Sampling systems such as hands and claws are used by scientists to pick up objects on the seafloor to be studied. A robotic claw does not work well for delicate objects, so ocean engineers at URI are working on designing an alternative system.
Use this resource to observe robotic sampling systems in action and design an alternate solution to this problem.