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Social Studies Education Resources:

WXXI Education has curated a list of useful social studies learning resources (lesson plans, content collections, partner sites, interactives, and printables) for students and educators in grades 6-12.

To support instruction, WXXI Education has pulled together a list of educational resources available through PBS LearningMedia:

PBS LearningMedia: Social Studies Subject Area – Explore natural phenomena and scientific practices with videos, lesson plans, and interactive tools.

All of the above topic areas are available as PBS LearningMedia Social Studies One-Sheets to share with students and educators. One-sheets include a clickable link and QR code for easy access. 

Favorite Social Studies Collections
There are tons of Social Studies resources available through PBS LearningMedia, here are WXXI Education’s top 5 Social Studies collections:

1. Teaching with Primary Source Inquiry Kits: As the perfect springboard for middle and high school student research projects, TPS Inquiry Kits have five primary sources, mostly from the Library of Congress, and one secondary source. Many of the primary sources are images, maps, audio, or video to support accessibility by students of any reading level. Each kit features three thinking questions to guide students, and web-based tools to help them analyze the historical sources. Explore each inquiry kit, and find the thinking questions under Support Materials.

2. PBS NewsHour | Daily News Story: PBS Newshour Classroom helps teachers and students identify the who, what, when, where, and why-it-matters of major national and international news stories. In partnership with PBS LearningMedia, we are proud to bring you the Daily News Story which takes the best of the PBS NewsHour news program and pairs it with discussion questions, lesson plans, and stories developed specifically for students. The lesson plans and resources help achieve Common Core State Standards goals and cover core academic subject areas ranging from civics and government to world affairs and education.

3. American Masters: American Masters, public television’s award-winning biography series, brings unique originality and perspective to exploring the lives and illuminating the creative journeys of our most enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists and filmmakers – those who have left an indelible impression on our nation’s cultural landscape.

4. The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross: Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. recounts the full trajectory of African-American history in his groundbreaking series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. The series explores the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies, and religious and social perspectives they developed — forging their own history, culture and society against unimaginable odds. Using video clips from The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, this collection of lesson plans addresses a wide range of themes of the African-American experience from 1500 to the present.

5. Teaching the Vietnam War: This collection of videos and lesson plans can help students explore the social and political dynamics of the Vietnam War. Students will examine why, how, and by whom the Vietnam War was fought, how it affected U.S. citizens at home, and how factors shifted over the course of the war. Students will identify the Vietnam War’s legacy and lasting toll on veterans. This collection includes resources related to The Vietnam War, a ten-part documentary series that aired on PBS September 17-21, 2017. The series represents the latest work from filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick and featured archival footage and testimony from nearly 100 witnesses, including American veterans who fought in the war and Americans who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians. 

Annenberg Learner Series – Educator Social Studies Resources

Math Education Resources:

WXXI Education has curated a list of useful Math learning resources (lesson plans, content collections, partner sites, interactives, and printables) for students and educators in grades 6-12.

To support instruction, WXXI Education has pulled together a list of educational resources available through PBS LearningMedia:

PBS LearningMedia: Math Subject Area – Bring math concepts to life through interactive games, animations and engaging media resources.

Favorite Math Collections
There are tons of Math resources available through PBS LearningMedia, here are WXXI Education’s top Math collections:

1. Math + Arts: This collection of lesson plans uses dance, drama, music, and visual arts to teach math concepts.

2. Math at the Core: Middle School: Find engaging media and integrated activities, all aligned with the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics. Designed for middle school students of diverse learning styles and backgrounds. Explore the collection by Common Core Domain (Operations & Algebraic Thinking, Numbers & Operations, The Number System, Ratios & Proportions, Equations & Expressions, Functions, Measurement & Data, Geometry, Statistics & Probability), or by grade level (5-8th grades).

3. Cyberchase: Cyberchase is the Emmy award-winning animated math mystery show featuring a team of curious kids who use their math and problem solving skills to outwit and outsmart the villain Hacker in their quest to save Cyberspace. In addition to segments from the animated portion of the show, this collection of resources includes live-action For Real segments, in which hosts Bianca and Harry explore the show’s math topics in everyday life. Topics include: Algebra, Data Analysis and Measurement, Geometry, Numbers and Operations, Math and Health, Math and the Environment, and Cyberchase At-Home Activities.

4. Think Math: These entertaining, imaginative resources from KET include standards-based interactives and videos for grades 5-8. Think Math offers 43 KET-produced resources from Math at the Core: Middle School, including 17 Scale Cityvideos and interactives about proportional reasoning, 14 Wild Fractions animations and games that feature visual models for fraction multiplication and division, nine Logical Leaps interactives about number lines, and three Maritime Mysteries interactives involving Cartesian graphs. Designed to appeal to diverse learners, these KET resources provide real-world connections, opportunities to think more deeply about mathematics, and ways to use both logic and computation to solve problems.

Additional Math Resources from Partner Organizations

Annenberg Learner Series – Educator Math Resource

English Language Arts Education Resources:

WXXI Education has curated a list of useful English-Language Arts learning resources (lesson plans, content collections, partner sites, interactives, and printables) for students and educators in grades 6-12. 

To support instruction, WXXI Education has pulled together a list of educational resources available through PBS LearningMedia:

PBS LearningMedia: English-Language Arts Subject Area – Browse standards-aligned ELA resources for students in all grades.

Favorite ELA Collections

There are tons of ELA resources available through PBS LearningMedia, here are WXXI Education’s top ELA collections:

1. Shakespeare Uncovered combines history, biography, iconic performances, new analysis, and the personal passions of its celebrated hosts to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s greatest plays – Julius Caesar, Much Ado About Nothing, Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, Macbeth, the comedies Twelfth Night and As You Like It, Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V, Hamlet and The Tempest.

2. American Masters,public television’s award-winning biography series, brings unique originality and perspective to exploring the lives and illuminating the creative journeys of our most enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists and filmmakers – those who have left an indelible impression on our nation’s cultural landscape. 

3. Literary Elements: Use these animated shorts to introduce or review literary elements and techniques like theme, setting, figurative language, characterization, and conflict. Can be used when students are just learning how to identify the most commonly used elements in poetry and literature or when a student needs a quick refresher. 

4. POV (a cinema term for “point of view”) is television’s longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films. POV premieres 14-16 of the best, boldest and most innovative programs every year on PBS. Since 1988, POV has presented over 400 films to public television audiences across the country. POV films are known for their intimacy, their unforgettable storytelling and their timeliness, putting a human face on contemporary social issues. POV’s lesson plans offer rigorous entry-points to the study of critical social issues.

5. A World of Stories: Storytelling has been used as entertainment, cultural preservation, and a way to teach values. Stories are typically told orally and passed down from generation to generation. This collection contains stories from around the world.

Additional ELA Resources from Partner Organizations

Annenberg Learner Series – Educator ELA Resources

Asian Americans PBS LearningMedia Collection

PBS LearningMedia has a wide range of learning resources for students in grades 7-12th grade, focused on Asian and Pacific Islander American Heritage and PBS’s Asian American series including the full Asian Americans series

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 and personal lives, the series will cast a new lens on U.S. history and the ongoing role that Asian Americans have played in shaping the nation’s story.

There are videos and three dozen lesson plans based on the Asian American series. Over the coming weeks, you’ll find this collection to include the stories behind the Chinese Exclusion Act, the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, Hawai’i as a sovereign nation, Southeast Asian Refugees after the Vietnam War, Filipino American Farmworkers, the fight for civil rights and much more. Keep checking back.

To support conversation and instruction, WXXI Education has pulled together a list of educational resources available through PBS LearningMedia:

    Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage

    Education Resources on Race, Racism, Civil Rights, & Diversity

    WXXI Education staff collected resources from PBS LearningMedia to support educators and families while discussing the following topics: race, racism, protesting, civil rights, Black history and historical individuals, bias, past and current events, and more. 

    This is a list of curated educational resources for educators and families to use with their students and children. These resources are not to be used alone, but instead to integrate with other educational materials (conversations, lessons, speeches, video clips, books, etc.) to provide students with the most context and meaningful knowledge. 

    Please note: 

    • These resources are free and open for all to use. 
    • This is not an exhaustive list of resources. 
    • These educational materials are to be used in conjunction with other resources, conversations, and instruction to provide the most complete context for students.
    • As with all educational materials, please preview these resources prior to utilizing with students to check for appropriateness.

    PBS LearningMedia Resources: Race, Racism, Protests, Civil Rights, Current Events, and more.

    Resources for Young Children on Race, Racism and Diversity

    Culinary Arts: Cooking, Baking, & Kitchen Science Education Resources:

    PBS Logo Food

    WXXI Education has pulled together recipes, baking series, kitchen science activities, and more! WXXI Education has curated a list of recipes, culinary activities, articles, and more, related to encouraging young people to explore kitchen science.

    Resources by Grade Level

    For Young Children:

    For Elementary Level:

    For Middle/High School Level:


    Food-Related PBS LearningMedia Collections

    The Science of Food: What do you call cheese that isn’t yours? Nacho cheese! All jokes aside, learn about the science of food with the following PBS Learning Media Food Science collection. Whether understanding the biology of taste, or how chocolate is made, these resources explain the science behind your favorite foods.

    Think Garden from KET

    Think Garden Collection: This engaging collection helps teach elementary students about the art and science of growing food, with an emphasis on biological and environmental concepts. It also addresses topics related to nutrition and economics.

    Flipside Science - Our Hungry Planet: Food for a Growing Population

    Our Hungry Planet: Our Hungry Planet: Food for a Growing Population, created by the California Academy of Sciences, explores environmental issues related to the food we grow and eat. Using videos and associated activities, you can engage your students in thinking about ways to reduce food waste or how their diet choices can impact the environment.

    PBS Food

    PBS Food: Satisfy your appetite for learning with these resources from PBS Food! The impact of healthy, organic, and sustainable food spans from industrial agriculture science to your home kitchen table, and now into the classroom with these videos and recipes aimed at making Food an accessibly teaching platform.

    The Ruff Ruffman Show: Kitchen Chemistry

    Ruff Ruffman’s Kitchen Chemistry:Targeted to students in kindergarten to second grade, this science resource collection from The Ruff Ruffman Show features teacher’s guides, YouTube-inspired videos, digital games, and student activities in English and Spanish starring canine host extraordinaire, Ruff Ruffman. Ruff, along with his trusty assistants Blossom the cat and Chet the mouse, answers questions from kids, takes on challenges, and learns the value of failure—all while modeling science inquiry skills and learning about core science concepts. Bring the fun of Ruff’s scientific investigations into your classroom and use the letters to families to extend the learning at home!

    Recipe Ideas
    Use the following series and resources to find new recipes to try out:

    Teaching Women’s Suffrage History

    WXXI celebrates Women’s History and Heritage. We proudly feature moments in women’s history that had their roots and connections to Rochester. Watch On-Demand and also see the profiles on WXXI-TV. 

    Explore the contributions of national and local people that contributed to women’s rights and learn about their roots in Rochester. 

    WATCH ALL PROFILES IN THIS PLAYLIST

    More Resources:

    Teaching Women’s Suffrage is a PBS LearningMedia collection of video clips, lesson plans, and primary sources details key figures, events, and regional movements of the decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. Students will encounter activists including Sojourner Truth, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Grace Abbott, and examine key regional efforts within the movement. Primary source documents offer evidence for a study of the chronology of campaign for women’s suffrage, from the movement’s beginnings through the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Go to the Collection > 

    Training as a Nurse in High School & Beyond

     

    You can train for an nursing career while still in high school.

    Exploring nursing and medical careers can begin in high school through career technical education. The program allows training while in high school, and gaining work experience through internships and co-ops to gain their certification. 75% of graduates go on to work part-time and further medical training to become LPNs or RNs through 2 year and 4 year training programs. Programs are also available as part of Adult Education, community college and college/university programs. 

    Research Career Areas: Ask about training dollars and scholarships or on-the-job training programs

    Career Coach (MCC) Explore regional nursing career descriptions, education requirements & salary levels

    How COVID-19 Caused a Nursing Shortage and Inspired a New Generation of New Nurses (WXXI News) 

    Job Postings for  related jobs

    URMC Affiliated Hospital Nursing Job Listings & Nursing School

    Rochester Regional Health Nursing Career Programs

    Training Programs for High School Students, College Students, On-the Job Training and Certificates

    High School Level Programs
    Monroe 2 BOCES

    Genesee Valley BOCES

    Monroe 1 BOCES Eastern Monroe Career Center

    Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES

    Training Programs in Adult Education

    Monroe 2 BOCES Center for Workforce Development

    Genesee Valley BOCES

    Monroe 1 BOCES: Can attend high school level classes (see above)

    Wayne Finger Lakes BOCES Health Careers

    Rochester Educational Opportunity Center (SUNY Brockport): Programs including Health Careers

    Training programs in at Community Colleges

    Bachelor’s Degree Programs & Beyond:

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