WCNY created the TV Classroom Network in response to the educational needs of students, primarily the roughly 12,000 students in Central New York caught in the “digital divide” without access to broadband and therefore unable to participate in online learning offered by their schools. Beginning in March, 2020 WCNY produced and broadcast 45 hours per week of instructional television, preK-12 classroom lessons in key academic subject areas taught by local educators on a special set at WCNY. For those with Internet access the content was also livestreamed and available on-demand on the WCNY website.
Science Pub BING engages the community of the Southern Tier of New York and connects them with regional scientists and experts in a lectures series followed by lively Q&A sessions. These events are designed to offer the public a greater understanding of the science, technology and engineering happening at our local universities and area businesses, while these experts hone their science communication skills bringing complex topics to the general public.
The Million Minute Challenge was an initiative to get people of all ages and backgrounds in Lehigh Valley reading. We asked our community to come together to read 1,000,000 minutes in March 2020, Reading Awareness Month, and what resulted was a fun, engaging, exciting, audience-captivating event that surpassed its goals and put reading at the center.
School, Interrupted from WFDD’s Hive education program is the manifestation of what happens when we stop being afraid of what teenagers have to say and we start listening instead. Students in WFDD’s for-credit Radio 101 high school class delved into the issue of school violence through a series of stories that developed into a Town Hall exclusively for teens to discuss their fears, assumptions and experiences in today’s high schools.
By building strong, consistent relationships with tribal leaders and by representing Wisconsin’s First Nations authentically and accurately by using first-voice narration, PBS Wisconsin shares consistent programming that highlights tribal history, culture, and lore.
As Detroit emerged as an early epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis, Detroit Public Television (DPTV) became a key media partner in the COVID313 Coalition, a group of grassroots organizations that united to help Detroiters access critical information about services in the area. By producing a weekly town hall that was streamed on Facebook Live, as well as broadcasting segments on our weekly public affairs show One Detroit, DPTV and the COVID313 coalition filled a void in the emergency response system and connected our audience with life-saving services
“Friends & Neighbors” is a 30-minute television program exploring what it means to live and work in Northwest Indiana. The series celebrates the idea that behind the multitude of good things that happen in our region is a diverse group of interesting people. It is their stories we strive to share.
PBS Wisconsin shares the voices and talents of students of color involved in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s First Wave Scholarship program in the documentary “Hip-Hop U: The First Wave Scholars.” By addressing local disparities in accessibility, representation, and education, we help Wisconsin educators be better prepared to implement culturally relevant pedagogy in their classrooms.
“The Learning Space” is an educational program created by Maine Public in partnership with the Maine Department of Education and Educate Maine. It is geared toward students in grades 3-5 and their teachers, and is intended to help bridge the gap for students without reliable internet access during COVID-19. It aired on Maine Public’s primary television channel and reached more than 180,000 people per episode, or roughly 90 classrooms.
Each summer, WUNC hires a diverse team of high schoolers, gives them microphones and trains them to tell us stories about their community. It’s been a majority-minority reporting team in each of its 8 years. Youth Reporters are paid, and for many, this is their first job that doesn’t involve a deep-fat fryer or manual labor. WUNC staff host weekly career development sessions (with pizza and soda) to talk about working in public media. In 2018, youth produced stories about mass shootings, mental health, housing insecurity and why so many Hispanics in our community drop out of high school.
The Future Jobs initiative explores the careers that are trending now and will be in the near future in Western Pennsylvania, not just in urban areas, but in the suburbs and in rural communities. This multi-platform project aims to deliver information to the public when they need it, notably to middle school students and their teachers.
The Playtime Pad Research Project investigates the effectiveness of tablet-based learning initiatives in early childhood math literacy, while providing access to the latest digital learning tools for students, teachers, and parents. Initiated by the College of Communication Arts and Sciences and WKAR Public Media at Michigan State University, the Playtime Pad Research Project is a unique partnership connecting PBS KIDS, the College of Education at MSU, and the Lansing School District.
To celebrate the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, PBS in Topeka created this two-hour community conversation with students and teachers from the segregation era. Shot in a modern-day Cinema Verite’ style on a single day in 2019, students and teachers from the four segregated Black schools in Topeka talked about their lives prior to and after integration. The five-part series included: Growing up in Topeka’s Black Community; Family, Friends, Neighbors; School and You (Segregation); School and You (Integration); and After-effects (outcomes, impact).
A recent survey showed 22% of Millennials “haven’t heard or are not sure if they have heard of the Holocaust.” Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe “something like the Holocaust could happen again.” Working with the Holocaust Education Resource Center, WVIA filmed the stories and recorded the voices of Holocaust survivors to share their stories with children in Northeastern Pennsylvania in the hope that “Never Again” will be a life-long reality for all.
The Computer Coding in the Classroom Project teaches children in grades K-3 – and their teachers – the skills necessary to write, read and create stories using computer coding. In just two years, WQPT has delivered 225 minutes of coding instruction to more than 1,000 students in partner classrooms through a series of five lessons each – and the entire project is funded by individual donors, foundations, and school districts.
Ahead of Illinois’ April 2019 municipal elections WILL worked with three high school classrooms and 80 adult community members to develop local candidate questionnaires that met the specific needs of municipalities in our listening area. IIllinois Public Media (IPM) partnered with community organizations on events that facilitated civil discourse, increased media literacy, democratized editorial decision-making, inspired civic action, and educated young Illinoisans. This “Democracy Series” was designed to demonstrate that public media is uniquely equipped to facilitate dialog about local concerns.
Iowa Public Television’s Iowa Land and Sky project provides general and classroom audiences with a unique perspective of the state’s geology, biodiversity, and environmental issues. Through short video stories, online experiences, classroom resources, and social media conversations, this initiative has helped Iowans better appreciate the ecological and geological diversity of the state.
A Parent’s Guide to Public Schools is a free magazine-style guide from Voice of San Diego that is distributed to 50,000 families annually. It aids parents in making decisions about their children’s education by providing an overview of every public school’s performance in easy-to-read charts and answering common questions about local public school options.
Launched in February 2019 as part of Wisconsin Hometown Stories: Eau Claire, “Joe Bee Xiong: War to Peace” explores Hmong-American history with student-focused educational resources created to help fill the Hmong history gap in Wisconsin classrooms. This project includes an animation illustrated in the artistic style of a traditional Hmong story cloth, narrated in both Hmong and English and downloadable, printable and electronic biographies written at three reading levels in English and Hmong.
Using GroundSource text messaging technology, 100 Days in Appalachia conducted a poll of voting-age Appalachian high school students ahead of the 2018 midterm election, asking about their stances on some of the most hot-button political issues, including immigration, gun control, abortion, LGBTQ rights, etc. The results were shared openly with local, regional, and national media outlets to inform their reporting about the politics of this group in the region.
