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
American Masters | N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear
Tuesday, October 13, 1 PM
American Masters examines the enigmatic life and mind of National Medal of Arts-winner Navarro Scott Momaday, the Kiowa novelist, short-story writer, essayist and poet. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “House Made of Dawn” led to the breakthrough of Native American literature into the mainstream.
- Program page
- PBS LearningMedia: “Kill the Indian and Save the Man”: Native American Representation, Assimilation, and the Erasing of Culture | N. Scott Momaday
Learning at Home
Week of 10/12 – 10/16
Monday, October 12
1 PM: Growing Native | Great Lakes: Turtle Island
Over the centuries, the Great Lakes have been home to hundreds of tribes and a source of fresh water, food, and health. Indigenous creation stories describe the world came into being on a back of a turtle shell, and today they know the earth as Turtle Island. Growing Native host Stacey Thunder (Red Lake and Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe) guides this journey by engaging tribal voices while touring Indian country with those who still devote their lives to care for the land.
- Program website
- Learning resource: Growing Native | Great Lakes: Turtle Island – Viewing Discussion Guide
2 PM: Growing Native | Oklahoma: Red People
Oklahoma is home to thirty-nine federally recognized tribes. Nowhere in North America will you find such diversity among Native Peoples, and nowhere will you find a more tragic history. Host Moses Brings Plenty (Oglala Lakota) guides this episode of Growing Native, on a journey to Oklahoma’s past and present. What he discovers among the many faces of Oklahoma culture is the determination, values and respect that tribes have brought to this land, once called Indian Territory.
- Program website
- PBS LearningMedia: Winter Count Lesson Plans – Native American Studies
Tuesday, October 13
1 PM: American Masters | N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear
American Masters examines the enigmatic life and mind of National Medal of Arts-winner Navarro Scott Momaday, the Kiowa novelist, short-story writer, essayist and poet. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “House Made of Dawn” led to the breakthrough of Native American literature into the mainstream.
- Program page
- PBS LearningMedia: “Blood Memory”: Native American Storytelling and the Oral Tradition | N. Scott Momaday
2:30 PM: Ohero:kon – Under the Husk
Ohero:kon – Under the Husk follows the challenging journey of two Mohawk girls as they take part in their traditional passage rites to becoming Mohawk Women. Kaienkwinehtha and Kasennakohe are childhood friends from traditional families living in the Mohawk Community of Akwesasne that straddles the U.S. / Canada border. They both take part in a four-year adolescent passage rites ceremony called Ohero:kon “Under the Husk” that has been revived in their community. This ceremony challenges them spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. It shapes the women they become.
- Program website
- PBS LearningMedia: Ohero:kon – Under the Husk Viewer Discussion Guide
Wednesday, October 14
1 PM: NATURE: Story of Cats | Asia to Africa
In the first episode of Story of Cats: Asia to Africa, we discover how the first cats arose in the forests of Asia, how they spread across the continent, and later came to conquer Africa. We reveal how they evolved flexible limbs to climb, giant bodies to survive in the cold, and super senses to catch prey. Ultimately we discover how becoming social made the lion, king of the savannah.
- Program page
- PBS LearningMedia: Animal Adaptations: Fishing Cat
2 PM: NOVA: Cat Tales
Worshipped as a goddess, condemned as satanic, and spun into a stunning array of breeds, cats have long fascinated humans. But did we ever really domesticate them? And what can science tell us about our most mysterious companions?
- Program page
- PBS LearningMedia: Cats – Yesterday and Today
Thursday, October 15
1 PM: Breakthrough: The Ideas that Changed the World | The Car
Go for a ride through the 9,000-year history of the car, from its roots in dogsleds to Henry Ford’s affordable and assembly line-built Model T, and meet the scientists working on the next generation of self-driving automobiles.
- Program page
- PBS LearningMedia: The First Automobile Assembly Line | American Experience
2 PM: Breakthrough: The Ideas that Changed the World | The Rocket
Learn the explosive history of the rocket, from its origin in ancient China, to its use as a weapon of war, to how adding hydrogen allowed it to carry astronauts all the way to the moon.
- Program page
- PBS LearningMedia: Rocket Activity – Build and Launch a Virtual Rocket
Friday, October 16
1 PM: Africa’s Great Civilizations: Origins
Journey with Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to Kenya, Egypt and beyond as he discovers the origins of man, the formation of early human societies and the creation of significant cultural and scientific achievements on the African continent.
- Program page
- PBS LearningMedia: Mitochondrial Eve and Homo Sapiens in Africa’s Great Rift Valley | Africa’s Great Civilizations
2 PM: Africa’s Great Civilizations: The Cross and the Crescent
Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. charts the ancient rise of Christianity & Islam, whose economic & cultural influence stretched from Egypt to Ethiopia. Learn of African religious figures like King Lalibela, an Ethiopian saint, and Menelik, bringer of the Ark of the Covenant.