The Venerable PBS

Written by: Dave Thomas
Venerable. That’s the word I think of when I think of PBS. True, if you’re not a former English teacher (and therefore former English major) that word might seem a little odd, but for me, it fits. Unfortunately, it also might cause me to miss all the cool, up-to-date resources PBS has to offer through PBS TeacherSource. It is one of netTrekker d.i.’s largest collections, and it pulls from all the shows and resources PBS has to offer!

First, I searched for “pbs teachersource” and got several results, one of which was the PBS Teachers site, of course. From there it’s easy enough to look around and seek specific items of interest. They have a large amount of Professional Development, Teacher Resources, and Standards-based Resources available from the home page. Nice.

Curious about just what I’d find using netTrekker like most folks do, I performed a couple of fairly random keyword searches to then refine using the Collections. Here are some winners:

I tried “wolf” from the High School tab and got a lesson plan from NOVA about wolf relocation programs that included handouts and answers!

I tried “twain” from the Middle School tab and found a fairly extensive curriculum from a PBS show, “Culture Shock,” for teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and dealing with the controversial material in the book. I know I hated reinventing the wheel when teaching, so having a unit I could modify instead of creating one from scratch was always welcome.

Lastly, I thought I should try an Elementary tab search, so I looked for “president” and got a short, cute activity from PBSkid’s Arthur section. I happen to like Arthur, so it looks like fun to me, and it also includes everyone’s favorite part of early childhood education: snack! Maybe I’ll talk Presidential elections, Arthur-style with my kindergartener and we can vote on the snack, too.

To keep the food metaphor going; this is just a taste of PBS TeacherSource, and I hope it whets your appetite. A good thing about venerable PBS: it definitely has resources you can trust (and sink your teeth into).
 

 

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Monday, February 9th, 2009 Features and Tools, The Collections

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