Middle

Meet John Henry. Born with a hammer in his hand, he is the greatest steel-drivin' man that ever lived. He's as strong as an ox, as fast as the wind and possesses impeccable aim.

Students will explore how society uses the Earth's resources to meet our most basic needs for food, water and shelter, and how those same resources influence how and where we live. Through our use and misuse of technology, students will see how we impact the world around us and conversely, how the forces of the ever-changing Earth shape our lives as well.

Imagine that someone from another country has asked you to describe the United States in a single sentence -- not an easy task! However, dividing America into regions and comparing and contrasting them can help explain our nation's unique natural, physical and cultural features.

Why do people settle where they do? Why do populations move from one place to another? In Human Systems, students will appreciate the role that the physical characteristics of Earth have played in determining where and how people live, and explore the notion that where and how we live has a huge impact on our planet.

Earth is a vast, diverse and complicated place, but breaking it down into regions allows us to simplify the whole. In Places & Regions, students will understand the physical and human characteristics that combine to form the areas we create to interpret our planet's complexity.

In this program, students will learn about cartography and technologies such as GIS, GPS and databases that geographers use to help us see the regular and recurring patterns in Earth's physical and human systems. These tools not only help us see and understand the world's patterns, but also help to make our planet a more comprehensible and fascinating place.

Explore the agricultural practices and technological devices that led to the rise of civilization in Mesopotamia. Meet the nomadic people who became farmers, and see how they established city-states, developed specialized work skills, and advanced organized religion.

In the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the Sumerians developed a written language. Examine how they carved cuneiform characters into clay tablets. Then explore Sumerian folktales.

For the Sumerians, the Tigris River served as an important early trade route. They used it to obtain scarce commodities, such as metal and wood, in exchange for their grain. See how they traveled by river and over land to trade with India and Egypt. Then examine how technological advances, such as the cart, facilitated transporting people and goods.

Take a trip to a recycling center, a landfill, and a town dump to understand what happens to trash after it is thrown away. Focus on the environmental problems created by solid waste and discover ways to alleviate the problem. Learn that through daily conservation methods, people can control the amount of waste they produce.

This program presents a biography plus images of Dali's greatest works. Born in Spain in 1904, Salvador Dali was one of the 20th century's most controversial and celebrated artists. He is best known for his involvement in the Surrealist movement due to such paintings as The Persistence of Memory, although the leaders of the movement later denounced Dali as overly commercial.

"FLATLAND" is based on Edwin A. Abbott's classic novel, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Flatland is a world that exists entirely on a two-dimensional plane. All different kinds of shapes live, work and play in this world. The story follows Arthur Square (MARTIN SHEEN) and his curious granddaughter Hex (KRISTEN BELL).

Based on the traditional American folksong, this compelling tale recounts the daring adventures of one family's escape from slavery via the Underground Railroad. This touching story captures all the drama of a perilous flight to freedom.