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WCNY connects educators to a wide variety of local, state, and national educational television programming, online classroom resources, and professional development opportunities.
Arctic Air: A Greenlandic Journey with the 109th
In the summer of 2009, a WCNY-TV production crew traveled to Greenland to document the extraordinary work of the New York Air National Guard 109th Airlift Wing, based in Scotia, New York. Flying the United States Air Force's only ski-equipped C-130 Hercules cargo planes, the Wing provides vital support for polar researchers working in the Arctic and Antarctica. Arctic Air: A Greenlandic Journey with the 109th captures the Wing members' commitment and efforts in a frozen land of incredible beauty but where danger always lurks. See the camps where American and international teams of scientists seek to unlock mysteries of the past buried deep within the polar ice cap to help provide answers to some of today's most important questions about climate change and global warning. The companion website features a Teachers Guide for middle-school and high-school teachers with suggested classroom activities, a resource bibliography, an annotated web links list, climate change essays, and much more.
New York State’s Contemporary Canal System
This video documentary and educator's guide make up an instructional unit on the Erie Canal, past and present. This unit is designed to meet New York State curriculum, not only for social studies but across the curriculum for teaching in math, science, and English language arts.
Double Down
Double Down is WCNY's high-energy, fast-paced academic high school quiz show where the students compete for top honors and prizes for themselves and their school. Consider forming a Double Down team from your school, or watch the show in your classroom, having your students try to answer the same questions as our televised quiz teams. Check our television program schedule for dates and times to tune in.
NYS PBS ONLINE RESOURCES
VITAL is an online library of K-12 curriculum-aligned video content and support activities for New York State Educators featuring public television content. Stream or download video, audio, flash interactive activities, and images. Registration is free and easy. Learn more or to register…
PBS TeacherLine New York is a collaborative effort among New York State’s public television stations, PBS and the U.S. Department of Education. It offers more than 90 online professional development courses for teachers of all grade levels, with all courses supported for use by the NYS Education Department. Graduate-level credits can be earned for coursework in math, reading, technology integration and teaching strategies.
NYS PBS Television Programming for Classroom Use
A 15-minute weekly current events news program, produced by WXXI – Rochester, geared toward fourth through eighth graders. Assignment the World is the classroom connection for children to current events. A fast-paced, interactive program covers the top news stories of the week from around the world.
National PBS Television Programming
PBS’ award-winning series such as NOVA, NOVA SCIENCE NOW, NATURE, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, and MASTERPIECE, complemented by extensive web content, are a source of high-quality television programming and multimedia assets for the classroom.
NATIONAL PBS ONLINE RESOURCES
This is the entry point for national PBS. PBS is a private, nonprofit corporation, founded in 1969, whose members are America’s public TV stations -- noncommercial, educational licensees that operate nearly 360 PBS member stations and serve all 50 states, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa. PBS has transformed itself from a solely broadcast organization to a multi-platform leader that serves Americans through television, Web,mobile TV, interactive whiteboards in the classroom and more. PBS reaches almost 117 million people through television and nearly 20 million people online each month.
This is national PBS’web destination for high-quality PreK-12 educational resources. Here you’ll find classroom materials suitable for a wide range of subjects and grade levels. You’ll find thousands of lesson plans, teaching activities, on-demand video assets and interactive games and simulations. These resources are correlated to state and national standards and are tied to PBS’ award-winning on-air and online programming like NOVA, Nature, Between the Lions and more. (Link)
The WCNY Interactive Education Department can provide teachers with customized programs, presentations and workshops that provide an overview of PBS resources, an introduction to VITAL, and support literacy initiatives for young children. Tours of WCNY for school-aged children through their schools or youth organizations are available. WCNY even puts teachers in touch with electronic field trip offerings, helping classes visit unique and educational destinations without ever leaving the classroom.
THE LATEST MISSION INTERACTIVE HISTORY GAME EXPERIENCE NOW AVAILABLE
Mission US: Flight to Freedom takes place in the years preceding the Civil War. Students playing the game assume the role of Lucy, a young slave girl born and raised on a Kentucky plantation, who faces difficult life choices including whether or not to try to escape from the plantation to find freedom elsewhere. Many communities in Upstate New York were actual stations on the Underground Railroad, so this video game has particular relevance to NYS students. Visit www.mission-us.org to play Flight to Freedom, or the first "mission" : For Crown or Colony? which focuses on rising tensions between England and the American colonies resulting in the Boston Massacre.
WCNY Literacy Outreach Programs and Workshops
WCNY utilizes PBS’s educationally sound children’s programs and Web resources as tools for visits with young learners in classroom, daycare, and public event settings as well as in teacher and parent/childcare provider workshops. Our primary goal is to assist children in developing literacy skills and expanded English vocabulary necessary for school success. And see below for information on an upcoming workshop...
FREE WiCkNeY KIDS Workshop: PBS Parents + Kids = Learning
Children ages 3-7 and their parents or grandparents are invited to a free workshop at WCNY on Saturday, May 5 at 11 a.m. Discover how PBS television shows and related online educational games and videos can be your number one partner when it comes to helping your young children learn. Children and their parents will experience the magic of PBS learning together in this hour-long workshop, which will feature fun activities and free giveaways including books and stickers! Call 315-453-2424 to register for the workshop as space is limited.
FREE DINOSAUR TRAIN APPS!
Preschool - Kindergarten Teachers...help your students learn while experiencing the fun of the hit PBS series, Dinosaur Train. From now through September, two new apps, based on The Jim Henson Company series Dinosaur Train will be distributed at no cost to iPads and iPhone devices that serve children in Title 1 schools, Head Start centers and other organizations in low-income areas. The PBS KIDS apps, All Aboard the Dinosaur Train and Dinosaur Train Camera Catch! leverage leading-edge technologies to help young children build key math skills including patterning and problem-solving. To receive the free apps, please contact WCNY's Director of Interactive Education, Debbie Stack, at debbie_stack@wcny.org.
FREE ELECTRIC COMPANY SUMMER LEARNING PROGRAM
The Electric Company (TEC) has developed a terrific Summer Learning Program complete with educator's guide, great for teachers, summer program leaders, and librarians...and WCNY has copies of the guide free for the asking! It's a 6-week program designed to build children's math and literacy skills through hands-on experiences, active viewing of engaging videos, interactive computer games and fun-filled activity sheets. Contact our Education Department at debbie_stack@wcny.org (or call 315-453-2424) to request a copy of the guide that takes you step-by-step through the program.
Contact WCNY's Director of Interactive Education, Debbie Stack, (debbie_stack@wcny.org) for more information about any of WCNY's educational outreach opportunities.
