The 2016 Summer Olympic Games kicked off last week. To commemorate the Olympic Games, here are PBS LearningMedia resources related to competitive sports and inspirational athletes.
Are Olympic Competitors Geniuses? | Video | Arts | Grades 9-12
Everyone is obsessed with the Olympics right now, watching these geniuses push the boundaries of their field. The word "genius" is normally associated with intellectual accomplishments, but athletes are geniuses at pushing their bodies to new heights, making the impossibly difficult seem easy and effortless.
Adaptive Technologies | Collection | Science and Engineering | Grades 6-12
These media resources from MEDAL QUEST and DESIGN SQUAD help students explore how science, technology, engineering, and math support athletes with physical disabilities as they compete at elite levels.
Use these standards-based resources to increase students’ understanding of people with disabilities, broaden awareness of Paralympic sports, highlight the adaptive technologies used by Paralympic athletes, and showcase the engineering design process used to create these technologies.
Jesse Owens and the 1936 Olympic Games | Video | History | Grades 6-13+
In this video adapted from American Experience: "Jesse Owens," learn the story of a great American athlete. Owens' medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin helped disprove the Nazi theory that nonwhite people were inferior. However, despite his Olympic victories, Owens faced racism as an African American back home in the United States.