Social Studies

Two students from different ethnic backgrounds are brought together as they learn about the life of America's foremost civil rights leader. This program will grab your students' attention as they learn about Dr. King's contributions to the people of the United States and those living throughout the world.

With the help of a colonial Presidential crier children come to understand why we celebrate Presidents' Day and what makes it so special. They learn about George Washington and the important role he played in the formation of our country. Next, they learn about the life of Abraham Lincoln and his resolve to keep our country unified, making him one of our great civic leaders.

With the discovery of an ancient diary, two children learn what drove Columbus to explore the unknown, who helped him in his journey, and what he found once he arrived in the New World. Guided by Columbus himself, the children see how the explorer went from working in his father's weaving shop to accidentally discovering the Americas.

See the story of the Mayflower's passage and the Pilgrims' first year in the New World. Learn about the Wompanoag Indian tribe and a game they may have played during the first harvest celebration—Thanksgiving. Learn many different ways that Americans celebrate this important day. Teacher's Guide available in disk and online: www.schoolvideos.com

Combines live action and animation to introduce maps and understand map reading. Describes how maps and globes are drawn to scale to reflect a larger physical geography. Identifies the signs and symbols found on maps and defines key concepts such as scale, relative position, direction, and legends.

Building on students’ basic understanding of maps and globes, the more complex concepts of latitude and longitude are introduced. The equator, north and south hemispheres, tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are defined and located down to minutes and degrees. The prime meridian, east and west hemispheres, time zones, and the international dateline come to life on a world cruise review.

Students examine geographical and human factors that affect personal and societal ways of life. Physical components such as climate, landform and relative location are discussed, expanding a learner's understanding of characteristics within northern and southern hemispheres, differing latitudes and longitudes.

Join five enthusiastic students in their high-tech "Social Studies Lab" to learn about the five themes of geography: Location, Place, Human-Environment Interactions, Movement, and Regions. Visit locations around the world to understand how geographers study the earth and the people who live here.

Discover why thousands of Americans left their homes in the East to endure months of hardship to settle in the West. Describes life on a wagon train. Learn about the special challenges of the trip, as well as the day-to-day routine, via re-enactments of the entire trip between Missouri and the West Coast.

This compelling program reveals how the interests of the industrial North and the agricultural South (the Cotton Belt) came to clash over critical issues such as plantation slavery, and how these issues eventually led to the secession of the southern states.

A huge bottled-water industry has recently emerged, with the U.S. its largest consumer. But is bottled water actually healthier, safer, or tastier than tap water? A water expert explains that bottled water does not meet the same strict standards in the U.S. as water from the tap, though tap-water quality can vary among communities.

Despite its wonders, Earth's water cycle does not spread water evenly around the planet. The Ogallala Aquifer’s huge underground reservoir of water gives the relatively dry Central Plains states such as Nebraska a large but limited irrigation source. But the aquifer's water is being used up faster than it is beng replenished.

The Rio Grande is one of our longest rivers, its Texas section forming the border between the U.S and Mexico. Competing human claims for it are viewed through the eyes of two young women: a whitewater rafting guide in upstream New Mexico and a teenager downstream near El Paso.

Drinking polluted water can cause many deadly diseases, especially in children of poor countries around the world. We see the crystal-clear water in a flowing Peruvian rainforest river but are amazed to learn that it is unsafe, due to runoff entering the great connected network of tributaries that flow into the Amazon, the world’s largest source of fresh water.

Polluted waters can have damaging economic and social effects as well as destroy wildlife habitats. Chesapeake Bay is one of the most polluted bodies of water in America, but local students are working with commercial crab catchers and scientists in the Baltimore area to help restore its health.