Working with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the seven PBS stations across Pennsylvania joined together to create Your Learning Neighborhood, your connection to thousands of hours of education and entertaining videos, activities, lessons, and games to support you. You can find out more at pennsylvaniapbs.org, in addition to our resources below.
Teachers, parents and caregivers: please explore! We are in this #TogetherPennsylvania.
WPSU is offering a film screening of the documentary, “Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life,” along with classroom resources to support your students in discussing difficult topics and creating solutions for peace.
In partnership with PA Department of Labor and Industry, WPSU has curated free content for parents, students, and educators that align to state career readiness standards. Here are top resources to help parents, students, and educators explore various careers.
WPSU is delighted to have collaborated with the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows Office at Penn State to create a video series presented by the 2021 Humphrey Fellows. These educational videos, suited for classroom and community viewing, feature each fellow talking about their home country, its culture, history, and people.
“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.
The Geospatial Revolution Project, from WPSU Penn State public broadcasting, provides schools with a look into GPS data gathering, which influences nearly everything. Explore these resources here!
Materials science is the study of stuff— what it’s made of, how it can be used, and even how it can be changed to create new kinds of stuff. Your mission? To learn how materials science and engineering is at work all around you.
Created by WPSU, Science-U@Home offers easy to advanced at-home science activities you can do with materials you have at home.
The goal of WPSU Reads is to enrich our community through storytelling and sharing knowledge of Native American cultures through our network of community partners. Click continue to discover educational resources and find upcoming community events.
This summer your family can go on adventures to continents around the world and expeditions right in your backyard.
Help your young students learn about the colorful world around them with PBS KIDS! Encourage them to immerse themselves in learning about the different elements of art like colors, shapes, lines, and textures. Use creative hands-on activities to support young learners develop fine-motor skills, practice listening to verbal instructions, engage in increasingly complex hand-eye coordination movements, and more.
Watch the clip from Elinor Wonders Why “A Change of Art” to model conversations about art and colors. Then use the lesson plan to students will observe different colors in paintings, animals, and the world around them.
Read The Boy and the Bindi, with Rae Wilson from the NYC Children’s Theater. This book, written by Vivek Shraya, is about a little boy who wears a bindi like his mother.
The classic Reading Rainbow series, which launched in 1983 and was the most-watched PBS television show in the classroom, not only offers nostalgia but provides high-quality curriculum for children in Grades K-5 that is still relevant today. The accompanying Reading Rainbow activities are theme-based, stemming from the featured book and may include questions for discussion, art projects, or writing prompts.
TEAMology characters treat the topics of bullying and problem-solving! Amelia demonstrates the power of the bystander, while Philo helps with a puzzling pet predicament.
Experience the power of friendship in this story about spending time with others and overcoming our differences. LeVar Burton visits a playground and invites us to think about how we can make friends with people from different backgrounds. After watching, use the provided teaching tips and discussion questions to further explore the topics covered in this book.
In this video from Let’s Learn, Glenda Esperance plays the “Domino Parking Lot Game” to explore numbers 0-12.
Lyla needs your help teaching Stu new tricks! Stu can do so many surprising things. Experiment with different sequences to see his super stunts at the playground, skate park, and basketball court.
Players strive to create a balanced desert ecosystem in which each animal has enough food to survive over a period of 12 days, in this interactive game from PLUM LANDING™. Players see how the different species of plants and animals in a desert depend on one another. They also experiment with how changing the amount of one resource affects the whole ecosystem.
Explore various landforms and water bodies in this interactive game from PLUM LANDING. Journey around the island and pick up trash to unlock information—including videos and ground-level and aerial images—about specific landforms and water bodies. Students use the game and associated supports to observe, identify, and record characteristics of common landforms and water bodies as they navigate and represent the landscape from an aerial perspective on a map.
Watt and Windy want to help Detritus (who has gotten himself stuck in a tree). They learn that they can call the Fire Department for help.
Abby Brown loves to help kids have fun while learning! In this segment, Abby teaches kids about what it means to be a citizen in their community. We all have a civic duty, or responsibility to take care of each other.
The performances in this collection were filmed at the Beauty of Jasmine Chinese Music and Dance Concert at the University of Kentucky’s Singletary Center for the Arts in March of 2012. The program was presented by the Chinese Music, Dance, and Arts Program (CMDAP), led by director Hong Shao. CMDAP is an educational performing and visual arts program that promotes the understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture.
Juanes has a Spanish vocabulary song to get you moving! Follow the steps as you learn the Spanish words for hands, head, and feet. This resource teaches Spanish vocabulary through dance and song.
In this episode of Cartoon Academy Quick Draws, Pittsburgh Cartoonist Joe Wos shows how learning to draw is as easy as ABC using the letters O-W-L to create a wise owl character.
Make a mask that shows off something special about you. After a mortifying ketchup-related accident, Freddie vows to never show her face again. She joins a mask-making workshop at Asian Arts Initiative expecting to be able to hide her face, but quickly learns that masks aren’t just about concealing something—they can also reveal things that are uniquely you. Use Freddie’s “Paper Mache Mask” activity as you watch and follow along making a mask of your own.
Informational text and Alaska Native culture form the basis of the groundbreaking MOLLY OF DENALI™ series and its educational resources. The MOLLY OF DENALI™ collection offers videos, digital games, lessons, teaching tips, and activities so that educators can utilize the series in the classroom. Set in a rural Alaskan village, and featuring the adventures of Molly, her family, and friends, MOLLY OF DENALI™ models the many ways that children can access and create informational text in their daily lives.
The classic Reading Rainbow series, which launched in 1983 and was the most-watched PBS television show in the classroom, not only offers nostalgia but provides high-quality curriculum for children in Grades K-5 that is still relevant today. The accompanying Reading Rainbow activities are theme-based, stemming from the featured book and may include questions for discussion, art projects, or writing prompts.
TEAMology characters treat the topics of bullying and problem-solving! Amelia demonstrates the power of the bystander, while Philo helps with a puzzling pet predicament.
Learn about medication safety with Rex the RX. Rex teaches simple and easy-to-remember lessons on staying safe around medication. The lessons come to life by teaching the method SEE, STOP, SAY to keep children safe around medicine.
Join Joel Lookadoo as he models some mathematical thinking. Practice using a ten-frame and decomposing numbers to find missing parts of an equation. Use the included resources to practice these strategies in the classroom.
Welcome to Odd Squad: the zaniest, craziest team of kid investigators around! Explore content below targeted at making elementary-level math a fun, imaginative experience, mixing concepts like arithmetic and geometry with fantastical storytelling.
Players strive to create a balanced desert ecosystem in which each animal has enough food to survive over a period of 12 days, in this interactive game from PLUM LANDING™. Players see how the different species of plants and animals in a desert depend on one another. They also experiment with how changing the amount of one resource affects the whole ecosystem.
Use science inquiry to predict and investigate forces and motion to help rescue Ruff’s plushie from the penguins’ ice rink in this sports science game from The Ruff Ruffman Show.
The Around the Globe: Cambodia collection allows students to take a virtual trip to Cambodia to learn more about Cambodia’s society and culture, as well as the art of Cambodia through the centuries. Explore significant events in Cambodian history, and the experiences of Cambodian Americans through videos, images, documents, and lesson plans.
Join Cheyney McKnight from the New-York Historical Society as she shows objects and money used long ago. Learn how she-merchants sold goods in exchange for money made of silver and gold. Compare buying and selling goods in the past to practices today.
The performances in this collection were filmed at the Beauty of Jasmine Chinese Music and Dance Concert at the University of Kentucky’s Singletary Center for the Arts in March of 2012. The program was presented by the Chinese Music, Dance, and Arts Program (CMDAP), led by director Hong Shao. CMDAP is an educational performing and visual arts program that promotes the understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture.
Goldilocks (Ricitos de Oro, played by Niña) returns to the home of The Three Bears (Los tres osos) to redeem herself by making soup. But first she leaves to find her friend, Little Rat (Ratoncito), to help her. Once again the soup turns out to be too hot to eat and the entire group goes for a walk-all except Salsa, who enjoys the soup on his own.
Minding your manners helps everyone enjoy the show. Learn the do’s and dont’s of proper audience etiquette as the folks of Artsville enjoy a purr-fectly lovely dramatic performance.
In this episode of Cartoon Academy Quick Draws, Pittsburgh Cartoonist Joe Wos shows how learning to draw is as easy as ABC using the letters O-W-L to create a wise owl character.
Say What?! is a clever new digital series about animal expressions. The eight short videos and accompanying support materials below shed light on the funny backstories and meanings of idioms. These resources are designed for use in elementary ELA classrooms as well as for English Language Learners in Grades 4 and up.
Randi House shows students how to look for clues in a text to support answers and gives students several examples of sentence starters they can use to introduce evidence from the text. Ms. House tells students a short story about Milly Hilly and then asks questions that require students to make inferences that must be supported by story details. The accompanying activity gives students an opportunity to practice making and supporting inferences with the short story “The Fisherman and His Wife.”
COMPASS for Courage is a gamified toolkit to strengthen coping skills in students struggling with anxiety, worries, fear, or stress. COMPASS uses collaborative game-based learning to teach youth research-backed strategies to manage worries, solve problems, build relationships, and face stressful situations with confidence.
Your students will learn to recognize and manage intense emotions without giving in to the urge to act in impulsive ways that can make problems bigger. This video is part of the Healthy Minds, Thriving Kids Project, a series of free, evidence-based video and print resources that caregivers and educators can use to teach their kids critical mental health and coping skills. The project was born of an innovative partnership between the state of California and the Child Mind Institute.
Estimate the volume you get when you fill 3D shapes with candy. This video focuses on estimating volume using nonstandard units, using the volume equation to get a more reliable estimate and checking your estimate by counting the nonstandard units. This video was submitted through the Innovation Math Challenge, a contest open to professional and nonprofessional producers.
Welcome to Odd Squad: the zaniest, craziest team of kid investigators around! Explore content below targeted at making elementary-level math a fun, imaginative experience, mixing concepts like arithmetic and geometry with fantastical storytelling.
Observe and read about Earth’s cosmic neighborhood and objects found in space with this annotated slideshow of NASA images. This slideshow can pique students’ interest and provide opportunities to ask questions about various objects found beyond Earth’s surface as they consider what telescopes have revealed.
Students use and develop models of the Earth–Sun systems to demonstrate understanding of how the Sun illuminates the hemispheres differently during summer and winter. Visual supports (video, images), data graphs, and informational text provide students with multiple entry points to investigating the phenomenon of the changing duration of daylight. This interactive provides the context and sources of data students can use to gather evidence that supports an explanation of why summer days have more daylight than winter days.
Students will read a description of the languages in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as the history of how these languages were disseminated. They will then complete an essay using this information and practice translating two sentences from English to Spanish and Spanish to English.
In this interactive lesson supporting literacy skills in U.S. history, students learn about the three branches of the United States government. Students explore the powers that the Constitution assigns to each branch—legislative, executive, and judicial—and how the three branches work together. During this process, they read informational text, learn and practice vocabulary words, and explore content through videos and engagement activities.
The performances in this collection were filmed at the Beauty of Jasmine Chinese Music and Dance Concert at the University of Kentucky’s Singletary Center for the Arts in March of 2012. The program was presented by the Chinese Music, Dance, and Arts Program (CMDAP), led by director Hong Shao. CMDAP is an educational performing and visual arts program that promotes the understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture.
Relish shares stories of cultural heritage in Twin Cities communities through the universal language of food. This sub-collection includes episodes that feature dishes inspired by Caribbean heritage, including recipes from Puerto Rican, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Students will investigate the work of Cuban artist Leandro Gómez Quintero. A former teacher of history and philosophy, he uses cardboard and refuse found on local streets and beaches to create small-scale models of the vintage cars and trucks in his remote city of Baracoa. Students will understand that the process of making art can be playful and will experiment to solve problems while making a miniature model.
Empower the Next Generation of Filmmakers! Dive into the WHYY Education comprehensive video tutorial collection designed to guide teachers and students on an exciting journey into the world of storytelling and video production. From creating compelling news stories to crafting captivating documentaries, each tutorial is packed with practical tips on topic selection, interviewing techniques, crafting interview questions, filming B-roll, and more.
This lesson plan is about Anna May Wong and introducing her legacy through art and poetry.
When you hear “Latino,” you probably think of people from Latin America—places like Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, etc. But where exactly did the history of that word come from, and has it always meant Central America and South America as well as the Caribbean? Trace the origin of the term “Latino” and the debates that still surround it as well as the term “Hispanic” and “Latinx” in this Origin of Everything episode.
Relish shares stories of cultural heritage in Twin Cities communities through the universal language of food. In each episode, host Yia Vang of Union Hmong Kitchen takes viewers inside the kitchen with local chefs as they serve up an ingredient or dish that has personal and cultural meaning to them. Viewers learn about and celebrate the diversity of our communities, inspiring them to explore their world in a whole new way.
Learners take on the role of cryptologists to decode clues using pre-algebraic substitution and order of operations. Can you crack the code and stop an international smuggling ring? The activity integrates geography and mathematics, and is best for grades 8 – 12.
Explore basic probability by visualizing all possible outcomes in the sample space. This video focuses on charting the sample space for rolling two dice and then calculating the probability of rolling an 8 using the charted sample space. This video was submitted through the Innovation Math Challenge, a contest open to professional and nonprofessional producers.
Learn how composer and ukulele artist Jake Shimabukuro uses ratios and fractions as he creates and plays music in this video from Center for Asian American Media.
Explore an apprenticeship program that trains future Emergency Medical Technicians. Career Explore Northwest is a community tool that aims to help middle schoolers, high schoolers, and young adults learn about in-demand, living-wage jobs in the Inland Northwest through career spotlight videos and a website featuring job/industry data information.
Explore why the Moon has phases with this first of two interactive lessons that allows students to use simulations and models of the Earth–Sun–Moon system. The lesson includes handouts for students to complete while using multiple simulations that model how the relative positions of the Sun, the Moon, and Earth lead to the cycle of changes in the Moon’s apparent shape.
Students use and develop models of the Earth–Sun systems to demonstrate understanding of how the Sun illuminates the hemispheres differently during summer and winter. Visual supports (video, images), data graphs, and informational text provide students with multiple entry points to investigating the phenomenon of the changing duration of daylight. This interactive provides the context and sources of data students can use to gather evidence that supports an explanation of why summer days have more daylight than winter days.
The basic drive to discover who we are and where we come from is at the core of the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.
Discover how Southerners resisted the rights granted to African Americans in the years following the Civil War. In November 1865, the government that President Andrew Johnson had set up in Mississippi passed a set of oppressive laws that only applied to African Americans known as the Black Codes. Other Southern states quickly followed suit. The intent of these laws was to restrict African Americans’ freedom, and compel them to work for white employers in a situation reminiscent of slavery.
The performances in this collection were filmed at the Beauty of Jasmine Chinese Music and Dance Concert at the University of Kentucky’s Singletary Center for the Arts in March of 2012. The program was presented by the Chinese Music, Dance, and Arts Program (CMDAP), led by director Hong Shao. CMDAP is an educational performing and visual arts program that promotes the understanding and appreciation of Chinese culture.
Relish shares stories of cultural heritage in Twin Cities communities through the universal language of food. This sub-collection includes episodes that feature dishes inspired by Caribbean heritage, including recipes from Puerto Rican, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Value is one of the seven basic building blocks of art along with Line, Form, Shape, Color, Space, and Texture. Through the lens of black and white photography, we look at how artists produce value scales and contrast, and how different kinds of lines change the way we perceive depth and space. Learn how different values can invoke different emotions in this video.
Off Book takes us inside the art and culture of logo design. Logos surround us in digital and physical spaces, but we rarely examine the artistic thinking that goes into the design of these symbols. Utilizing a silent vocabulary of colors, shapes, and typography, logo designers give a visual identity to companies and organizations of all types. From cave painters to modern designers, artists throughout history have been reducing the complex down to simple ideas that communicate concepts to the world.
Learn about the background and continued relevance of the novel The Joy Luck Club in this video from the American Masters film Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir. Published in 1986, The Joy Luck Club was a break-out hit for its author, Amy Tan. For years, Tan had been working intensely as a freelance business writer. But Tan wanted to pursue more personally meaningful work. She began reading and writing fiction, a process that she found allowed her to write about her family and the person under the guise of fiction.
Step into the realm of horror literature with this captivating dramatic reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Tell-Tale Heart.’ Students immerse themselves in Poe’s masterful storytelling as they explore the elements he employs to cultivate an atmosphere of unease and evoke dread in his readers. Through careful analysis of the reading, students dissect each literary technique, unraveling how they contribute to the chilling world of horror.
Relish shares stories of cultural heritage in Twin Cities communities through the universal language of food. In each episode, host Yia Vang of Union Hmong Kitchen takes viewers inside the kitchen with local chefs as they serve up an ingredient or dish that has personal and cultural meaning to them. Viewers learn about and celebrate the diversity of our communities, inspiring them to explore their world in a whole new way.
Following a profile of Elton Brand, an accomplished basketball player who uses math in his work, students are presented with a mathematical basketball challenge. In the challenge, students focus on understanding the Big Ideas of Algebra: patterns, relationships, equivalence, and linearity; learn to use a variety of representations, including modeling with variables; build connections between numeric and algebraic expressions; and use what they have learned previously about number and operations, measurement, proportionality, and discrete mathematics as applications of algebra.
Volume can be used to find out how much a container holds. Explore volume, how it differs from weight, and how we can measure it. These resources are part of KET’s Measurement and Geometry collection.
Explore the job duties of an Outpatient Clinician and the required training and potential career paths for this job. Career Explore Northwest is a community tool that aims to help middle schoolers, high schoolers, and young adults learn about in-demand, living-wage jobs in the Inland Northwest through career spotlight videos and a website featuring job/industry data information.
Learn how New York City’s drinking water travels from watersheds in upstate New York in this segment from the WPSU documentary Liquid Assets. Liquid Assets, a ninety-minute documentary, tells the story of essential infrastructure systems: water, wastewater, and stormwater.
This interactive activity adapted from the University of Alberta illustrates how, through a process called fixation, nitrogen flows from the atmosphere, into the soil, through various organisms, and back to the atmosphere in a continuous cycle.
To understand democracy, we have to understand voting and voting rights. In this activity, students will examine and share their perspectives on democracy and voting. Students will watch videos from PBS Digital Studios’ Above the Noise, a student centered show that highlights current events and trending topics.
Explore religious beliefs around the world through an interactive map that displays the religions that are the most prevalent in each country around the world. You may click on one of eight religious groupings listed in the menu to examine its relative prevalence in each country. The map features brief descriptions of each religious grouping and bar graphs that reflect the percentage of a country’s population associated with each grouping.
Irasshai teaches Japanese language and culture skills to high school and college students and adult learners and professionals.
Relish shares stories of cultural heritage in Twin Cities communities through the universal language of food. This sub-collection includes episodes that feature dishes inspired by Caribbean heritage, including recipes from Puerto Rican, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.
These resources are curated monthly based on new PBS LearningMedia content and recent events.
A growing list of resources from PBS and trusted partners, to use as tools to support anti-racist learning and growth. Free and open for all. (pdf)
Centre County Local Interagency Coordinating Council (LICC) resource book, a guide to services and supports for children birth to five (0-5).
Sonia Manzano, known as Maria on Sesame Street, will speak about how parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and those working with children can learn how to talk to kids about race.
Find parenting tips, hands-on activities, games, and apps for grades PreK-3 to help you raise kind, curious, and resilient children.
Hundreds of multi-media tools to help kids and families enrich and expand their knowledge during the early years of birth through six.
