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. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections.
Grade levels: Upper Elementary (4-6)
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Maps: Types, Symbols, and Terms
Learn about the world of information available to map readers. Understand the common and practical uses of maps – from finding one’s way across town to finding the yearly rainfall in England. See examples of how symbols on a map stand for real features. Recognize relief, topographical, political, historical, population, and many other kinds of maps. Learn how grids are used on both globes and maps to find locations – and much more! DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections.
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Native Americans: The First Peoples
Examine the life-styles of Native Americans who lived in the Eastern Woodlands, the Great Plains, the Southwest Desert, the Pacific Northwest, and the Arctic. Witness what happened when the white man arrived with his different cultural beliefs. See how Native Americans live today in the United States. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections.
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Plymouth Plantation
Students blast back in time to the original Plymouth Plantation of 1620, the first colonial settlement in southern New England. Follow along as they learn about daily life and culture, the roles of Pilgrim men and women, the voyage of the Mayflower, and the importance of the Mayflower Compact. Begin to understand that Thanksgiving for the Pilgrims was a daily practice, not just a feast held once a year. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections.
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How Mountains Affect Life
Discover that the way we live depends on our environment. From valleys and foothills to high mountain ridges, learn how communities and people adapt to the different features of the Earth. Understand the kind of work and lives people must lead to adapt to different levels of rainfall, temperature, and natural resources. (Guide available online)
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Globes & Us
Learn about latitude and longitude, grids, degrees, minutes, seconds, time zones, scale, legends, keys, cardinal and intermediate directions, hemispheres, and more. Live action and animation help simplify these concepts. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections.
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Adventures in Scientific Exploration
Eye of the Cyclops: adventures in Scientific Exploration features voyages of discovery into nine environments (3 pond regions, 2 streams, 2 woodland, 2 urban yards).
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Plankton Play
Cyclops, and its intrepid crew of explorers, dive into open water where they encounter the denizens of the plankton: micro-crustaceans, insects, rotifers and protists, all organisms that show unique adaptations for open water life.
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Decomposers Everywhere
Settling their craft into the bottom, the micronauts discover that the bottom ooze is populated by bacteria, the microbes that decompose and recycle organic materials. Decomposers Everywhere is an unforgettable visual introduction to the concept of organic decomposition.
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Food Chains Begin with Photosynthesis
In this episode, a single algae cell is rescued and its green secrets are revealed through experiments performed on board the Cyclops. Jonathan and Lyra discover how algae start food chains that ultimately sustains the fish, birds, amphibians and mammals living in and around the pond.