Week of May 25-29 Learning Materials

Memorial Day
Learn about Memorial Day, a federal holiday in the United States for remembering the people who died while serving in the country's armed forces.

Student Reporting Labs: Military Families
A PBS NewsHours segment hearing from kids whose parents are in the military.

Solar Power
In this video from NOVA's Energy Lab, learn about the benefits and limitations of converting the Sun's light and heat into electric.

The Future of Energy
The sun is primarily a source of light and heat. But can it be our primary source of energy?

Nature Works- To Make Clean Energy
Explore where our energy comes from, and what makes certain types of energy renewable and sustainable.

Gravity: Four What?
Gravity is only one of the four fundamental forces in the universe. Find out more about all the forces that keep our universe changing. Plus, what happens to humans in space? And a sheet, a basketball, Einstein explained.

Einstein: Genius Among Geniuses
Learn why Albert Einstein tops many people's lists of the greatest-ever scientific geniuses in this essay from the NOVA Website.

Einstein: A Timeline of His Life
This illustrated timeline from NOVA outlines some of the most important events of his life.

Motion and Relativity
Learn about the principle of relativity in this video from the American Museum of Natural History.

Gravity and the Expanding Universe
In this video segment adapted from NOVA, learn about the history of our understanding of the expansion of the universe.

Black Holes
Stellar mass black holes form when a very massive star dies, and its core collapses.

Black Holes
Learn how the life cycles of low-mass and high-mass stars differ, in this video from NOVA: Black Hole Apocalypse.

What is P-Value?
Science's most important (and controversial) number has its origins in a British experiment involving milk and tea.

YouTube Algorithms: How to Avoid the Rabbit Hole
We all know how easy it is to spend hours watching videos on YouTube. Why do we go down that rabbit hole? Mostly because of a combination of computer programming and marketing know-how called ALGORITHMS.

The Human Face of Big Data- Google Predicts the Flu
Until recently, the only way to detect a flu epidemic was by accumulating information submitted by doctors about patient visits. This process took about two weeks to reach the CDC - much too long to be effective. In an effort to improve speed, researchers flipped the process and tried using big data. By using data from billions of Google searches over a period of five years, they were able to make amazing connections. They found that the number of flu related searches correlated with the number of people who had the flu. Most impressively, they could accurately predict flu outbreaks up to two weeks before the CDC by identifying specific search terms.

How to Make a Video Game
Video games are fun to play, but have you ever wondered how to make one?

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.

Urban Planner
Take a tour of a real-life future city under construction and envision yourself with a career as a city designer.

Hot Shots & Hot Jobs: Urban Design and Neighborhoods of the Future
We don’t give much thought to our daily commute—the routes we take to get to school or to our jobs. Those same networks of roads and sidewalks we take for granted every day, plus the parks and plazas we pass by, are planned by urban designers.

Funding the Statue of Liberty Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People
The Statue of Liberty was given to the United States as a gift from France, however the statue was given without a pedestal to support it. Discover how newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer helped start a campaign to fund a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty in this video from the American Masters film Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People.

Calculating Volume: Tunnel Construction
Investigate some of the mathematical challenges Boston engineers had to deal with during the Central Artery Tunnel Project (the "Big Dig").

NOVA scienceNOW: Smart Bridges
This video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW features two engineering innovations designed to improve structural safety in bridges.

The National Parks: America’s Best Idea Full Film: A Film by Ken Burns
Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales, the film is a story of people from every conceivable background—rich and poor, soldiers and scientists, natives and newcomers—who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.

Bats UNTAMED
Learn about bats -- a diverse group of flying mammals that humans often associate with folklore, legends, ghost stories, and scary tales. But we have more in common with bats than we think -- these tiny mammals are socially intelligent and can have a rich social structure and means of communication with each other.

A Variety of Hummingbirds
This video segment from Nature introduces viewers to several species of hummingbirds.

NOVA: North American Sky Tour
Learn about the geological history of North America in this video from NOVA Digital. Google Earth flyovers and visualizations from NOVA's Making North America illustrate how particular locations, landscapes, and life forms have changed through time.

Maya Angelou American Masters
American Masters Collection to support the Maya Angelou programming.

Up Close: Young People in World War II
Discover how World War II affected the lives of young people, at home and on the battlefield, in Europe and America, through this unique interactive experience.

Explore the war with this series of articles from the National WW II Museum in New Orleans

The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis
During World War II, the South Pacific Philippine Sea was not only the site of many battles but also where the United States had many ships stationed. One of the ships was the U.S.S. Indianapolis, which sank after being torpedoed by an enemy submarine.

Where in China is…?
Play this mapping game to test your knowledge of China. Can you find the Terracotta Army or the Great Wall of China? Players start this game with 5000 miles and lose 500 miles for every wrong answer. The challenge is to get to Shanghai before running out of miles.

Know Your Dynasties
Each dynasty has left its mark on China. Even today, the Chinese refer to historical events not by their date but by the dynasty in which they took place. That's why you need to know your dynasties! Play the quiz and match the cards to the dynasty. See how many you can get right before the time runs out.

Urbanization During the Ming Dynasty: Word Search Puzzle Activity
Review the activity on urbanization in ancient China, and then try to find the related words in this word search puzzle.

Elements of Art
Explore the seven basic elements of art including Line, Shape, Form, Texture, Value, Space and Color. These are the building blocks of all art and are a good place to start when making, looking at or analyzing works of art.

Art School is a video series for people who want to learn about art. See interviews with contemporary artists working in performing, visual and media art, as well as how-to videos that demonstrate new ways to get creative and explain art-making techniques and concepts.

See how art became the great interface when distant cultures met for the first time. Interactive art experience for episode Encounters and The Second Moment of Creation.

And Then There Were None
Writers Gillian Flynn and Christopher Bollen explain why And Then There Were None is Agatha Christie's most compelling mystery. It's an example of how thrillers are so effective when talking about villains and monsters. Christie's masterpiece doesn't rely on a detective to solve the crime, and explores an obsession with both murder and justice.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Ignatius J. Reilly is the unlikely, and unforgettable hero of the Pulitzer prize-winning A Confederacy of Dunces.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream:The Love Potion
This media gallery from Shakespeare Uncovered examines how and why the love potion is used in William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Students will learn what inspired Shakespeare to incorporate the love potion into the play and how it impacts the plot and dialogue.

Looking for Alaska: The Great American Read
Looking for Alaska is a young adult novel about first love, unrequited love, tragedy, and the intense experiences during the teenage years.

Alice in Wonderland-Queen of Hearts
The Queen of Hearts is the most notorious villain in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Moby Dick-Captain Ahab
Experts discuss Herman Melville's love of the sea and how the obsessed Ahab is the anti-hero of the story.

The Giver
The Giver is a Newberry Award-winning book by Lois Lowry that tells the story of 12-year-old Jonas. We explore how Jonas is an ordinary boy who does the extraordinary.

Heroes
From this video segment from, Jakers!, we learn that every story has a hero.

Heroes and Hope in Frank Herbert’s Dune
In this excerpt from The Great American Read, Wil Wheaton describes his relationship with Frank Herbert’s Dune. The best-selling science fiction novel chronicles the tension between good and evil, and the fight over a limited natural resource —"the spice."

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.

Stepping Up: What Motivates You to Make Change
“Stepping Up,” is a short video series featuring four young people working for real change in their communities. The "Stepping Up" collection includes the video series, classroom supports and a youth media challenge prompt.

The Mayors of Shiprock
Every Monday in the small community of Shiprock, New Mexico, a group of young Navajo leaders meet to decide how they will help their community.

Independent Lens: MISS NAVAJO
The Miss Navajo Nation competition is no ordinary beauty pageant. But what does it have in common with other pageants? Find out how its rules and requirements differ—and intersect—with those of the famed Miss America competition.

Navajo Technical College: Dendroclimatology
In this video segment adapted from Navajo Technical College, meet Steven Chischilly, a professor of environmental science, and hear about his research on climate change. Listen as he describes how climatic conditions, such as moisture and precipitation, contribute to tree growth rates and the amount of carbon that is stored by a tree in different years.

Indian Pride, Education
JuniKae Randall introduces the topic of Education, which takes many forms for Native Americans.

Native America: Cities of the Sky
Native America: Cities of the Sky explores the creation of some of the ancient world’s largest and most impressive cities. An archaeologist explores some of the world’s largest pyramids in Central America, scientists 3D-scan a lost city of monumental mounds on the Mississippi River, and native elders reveal ancient powers of the sky in modern-day Missouri. Modern research suggests these ancient urban centers are more than just great feats of engineering and artistry. They are heavenly cities—aligned to and inspired by the movement of the sun, moon, and stars.

Celestial Sphere
This animation is a simple model of the apparent motion of the stars in the night sky. Ancient people described the motions as if the stars were all attached to a vast globe, or a Celestial Sphere, centered about the Earth.

Galileo: Sun-Centered System
Before the 17th century, people generally believed that Earth was at the center of the universe. Galileo, however, was not afraid to challenge existing beliefs.

Galileo’s Thought Experiments
This video from NOVA shows a dramatization of one of Galileo's thought experiments designed to help prove that Earth moves around the Sun at great speed.

NOVA: Galileo’s Inclined Plane
Galileo's use of the inclined plane to study the motion of objects is one of his most important contributions to science. As this video segment from NOVA illustrates, the inclined plane allowed Galileo to accurately measure the effect of gravity on falling objects and develop a universal law describing this effect.

Gravity at Earth’s Center
In this video adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, investigate the hypothetical scenario of a person falling into a hole through the center of Earth.

Solar System Dynamics: Orbits and Kepler’s Laws
Explore how human understanding of planetary orbits has changed throughout history in this video about Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

Lorraine Hansberry
In this video from First Person: Classroom, students learn about Hansberry’s lasting impact and the intersectionality that defined her life.

Lorraine Hansberry: Writing Process
Learn about the story behind the writing of A Raisin in the Sun in this video from the American Masters film, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart.

Lorraine Hansberry: Analyzing Theme
In this interactive lesson, discover how literary techniques like setting, characterization, and conflict contribute to the overarching theme of a text.

Lorraine Hansberry: Role of Women in the 1950s
Explore the role of women in the 1950s in this video from the American Masters film, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart. Incorporating footage of women in the 1950s, Lorraine Hansberry’s life, and scenes from the film version of A Raisin in the Sun.

Lorraine Hansberry: A Raisin the the Sun:Jim Crow, Home Ownership & the American Dream
Learn how Jim Crow laws impacted home ownership and the pursuit of the American Dream in this series of videos from the American Masters film, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart.