Take advantage of this week’s Learning at Home broadcast schedule – great for students engaged in hybrid or distance instruction, and families looking to spend some extra, quality time together!

After watching these fascinating programs, explore the PBS LearningMedia and web resources to learn more.

Highlight of the Week

A Wild Idea: The Birth of the APA
Wednesday, October 27, 1 PM

New York’s Adirondack Park is larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and Great Smokies National Parks combined. It is one of the largest unbroken deciduous forests on earth. It has a thousand of miles of streams and rivers, hundreds of lakes, and lofty peaks. Even more amazing, most of the land within the park is privately owned, and 85 million people live within a day’s drive. Yet the Adirondacks seem entirely undeveloped. How did that happen? The founding of the Adirondack Park Agency, 50 years ago, was truly, A Wild Idea.

• Program website
• Learning resource: Regulation and Resistance: Adirondack Activism in the Early Years of the APA – Virtual Exhibition | Adirondack Experience

Learning at Home
Week of 10/25 – 10/29

Monday, October 25

1 PM: NATURE: My Garden of a Thousand Bees

A veteran wildlife cameraman is bee-obsessed. Seeking refuge from the pandemic in a small city garden, he is filming the wild bees that live there with mind-blowing results. From giant bumblebees to scissor bees the size of a mosquito, he has seen more than 60 species of bee. But more importantly, he is developing a close relationship with an individual bee he follows through its entire life.

• Program website
• Learning resource: Bumblebee Fact Sheet | NATURE

2 PM: NOVA: Edible Insects

From crunchy cricket chips to nutty black soldier fly grubs, “Edible Insects” leaps across cultural and culinary boundaries to explore the insect food industry and how it could benefit our health and our warming planet. But what about the “ick” factor? NOVA invites a panel of volunteers to sample an invitingly prepared tasting menu of roasted crickets, ants, mealworms, and chipotle-flavored grasshoppers prepared by a New York chef, and, not surprisingly, some of the diners have trouble concealing their squeamishness. Yet all the evidence adds up to the idea that our aversion to insects is mostly a matter of attitude and cultural conditioning. So will your kitchen table soon host its very own savory insect feast?

• Program website
• PBS LearningMedia: Bugs for Breakfast | Our Hungry Planet

Tuesday, October 26

1 PM: Genius by Stephen Hawking | What Are We?

A new set of volunteers explore self-assembling machines, light-up bacteria and the world’s first physical demonstration of evolution in action conspire to totally revolutionize their view of life. We discover not only that our bodies are machines of incredible complexity, but how they came to exist and how long it took for our lives to come about.

• Program page
• PBS LearningMedia: What Are We? Lesson Plan | Genius by Stephen Hawking

2 PM: Genius by Stephen Hawking | Where Are We?

Three ordinary people engage in a series of fun physical and mental challenges to show them how to think like a genius. Can they measure the earth, the solar system and even the universe and find out where we really are? They’ll use a helicopter, a boat and a powerful laser to prove the earth is round – and to measure it. Next they head off to the iconic Black Rock Desert to try and get a grip on the massive scale of the solar system.

• Program page
• PBS LearningMedia: Map a Model Solar System

Wednesday, October 27

1 PM:A Wild Idea: The Birth of the APA

New York’s Adirondack Park is larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and Great Smokies National Parks combined. It is one of the largest unbroken deciduous forests on earth. It has a thousand of miles of streams and rivers, hundreds of lakes, and lofty peaks. Even more amazing, most of the land within the park is privately owned, and 85 million people live within a day’s drive. Yet the Adirondacks seem entirely undeveloped. How did that happen? The founding of the Adirondack Park Agency, 50 years ago, was truly, A Wild Idea.

• Program website
• Learning resource: “A Wild Idea” Author Brad Edmondson | MLJ Interview

2 PM: Secrets of the Dead: Magellan’s Crossing

Five hundred years ago, Ferdinand Magellan and his crew set sail to gain control of the global spice trade. What resulted was the first circumnavigation of the earth, laying the groundwork for colonization and globalization still felt today. This new episode demonstrates humanity’s quest to understand the true dimensions of the planet while sailing to the Spice Islands of Indonesia.

• Program website
• PBS LearningMedia: Explorers: Age of Encounter | Google Earth Voyager Stories

Thursday, October 28

1 PM: Things That Go Bump in the Night

“Things That Go Bump in the Night” details some of New England’s most bone-chilling stories, myths and legends. Interviews with local authors and experts, along with personal accounts, reveal tales of the supernatural, the unexplained and the mysterious. The special features visits to the infamous Lizzie Borden home in Fall River, MA, the long-abandoned village of Dudleytown in northern Connecticut, the Hoosac Tunnel in the Berkshire Mountains, the New London Ledge Lighthouse, Bellcourt Castle in Newport, Rhode Island and a Union cemetery in Easton, CT — the sites of terrible tragedies, supposed curses and ghostly hauntings.

• Program page
• PBS LearningMedia: Moundsville Ghosts

2 PM: Monstrum | Exhumed: A History of Zombies

In this new one-hour Halloween PBS special, Dr. Emily Zarka will deconstruct some of the most significant moments in zombie popular culture over the last two centuries to reveal what these creatures say about us.

• Program page
• PBS LearningMedia: Zombies and Calculus, Part 1

Friday, October 29

1 PM: Soundscapes: Gretchen Koehler and Daniel Kelly

Local musicians and stunning scenics take centerstage on Soundscapes. The duo of fiddler Gretchen Koehler and pianist Daniel Kelly close out this season of Soundscapes with a lively mix of traditional and original works at the Strand Center Theatre in Plattsburgh, NY.

• Program website
• PBS LearningMedia: The Fiddle and the Banjo: Origins

1:30 PM: Articulate | Walk a Mile With Me

Throughout history and across civilizations, the humble shoe, once mere protection for our tender feet, has evolved new meanings. Today, shoes are signalers of taste and markers of status. They are taking us on fresh paths, integrating new technology to become more sustainable while helping push the boundaries of human performance.

• Program page
• PBS LearningMedia: MN Original | Shoemaker Amara Hark-Weber

2 PM: La Frontera with Pati Jinich: From Dos Laredos to Mars

Acclaimed chef and James Beard Award-winning host Pati Jinich, travels the US-Mexico border. In Part Two of the series, From Dos Laredos to Mars, Pati travels from Laredo and Nuevo Laredo to Brownsville, Texas. She learns how tight-knit family bonds are an underlying theme connecting everything in the Laredos, and throughout La Frontera.

• Program page
• PBS LearningMedia: Vamos a hacer pozole

Learning at Home on Mountain Lake PBS is supported by:
Adirondack Foundation