This unique project offered the region’s storytellers the platform needed to disseminate their films to a new audience through broadcast distribution of their finished films. The initiative served filmmakers from the Keys to the Treasure Coast with an audience reach of over 6.3 million, deepening the understanding of ourselves and our neighbors.
The South Florida PBS Virtual LGBTQ Town Halls series consisted of four virtual town halls that were meant to provide an online platform where LGBTQ and straight residents could interact and share experiences in a safe atmosphere.
Reading Frederick Douglass uses new technology to capture a statewide virtual public reading of the famous 1852 speech in which Douglass asked, “What to the slave is your fourth of July?” His words are just as meaningful today as they were nearly 170 years ago.
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.
PBS Utah’s Book Club in a Box provides book club hosts with a kit of curated material designed to facilitate in-depth conversations for their book clubs. The project builds engaged communities beginning with the individuals who participate in their book groups. The project supports exploration and critical thinking on current and topical film/literary works aimed to inspire involvement and a call to action.
Inspired by the words of Fred Rogers, LPB’s “The Helpers” is a digital series that aims to help people cope with their negative feelings by showing them that good things are still happening in their communities as their neighbors find ways to overcome their own challenges and fears.
Through its partnership with local government, WCTE was able to broadcast live emergency updates from inside Putnam County’s Emergency Operations Center just hours after an EF4 tornado struck Cookeville, destroying entire subdivisions and killing more than 20 people. This capability existed because county officials partnered to provide WCTE with studio space, audio and video equipment and a direct internet link between the Emergency Management Agency building and WCTE’s Master Control.
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
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 Life Autistic is an extensive multi-platform project that explores the lives of Iowans with Autism Spectrum Disorder. It features people of different ages and abilities who each have a unique story to tell and delves into their challenges and successes.
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.
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).
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.
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.
The Slice is a digital project from WDSE, Duluth, MN, that reflects the unique character, events, and experiences found in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Episodes of The Slice are often captured while gathering b-roll for other local programming. The format allows snippets of video to be shared at appropriate lengths for social media consumption. The most popular clips of the month are sent to members and supporters through the monthly e-newsletter.
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.