These classroom resources and educator professional development courses are provided for free by nonprofit public media station KQED.

Classroom Resources

Lesson plans and resources aligned to NGSS, geared toward middle and high school classes.

Science Documentary Youth Media Challenge

Give your secondary students the opportunity to share how they see the world around them by making their own short science documentaries. Students will use cinematography and storytelling to highlight a scientific observation that impacts their family, school or community. This project is aligned with NGSS and comes with modifiable curriculum. 

Engineering for Good Youth Media Challenge

Engage your students by designing solutions for real-world problems and making media for an authentic audience. This project-based curriculum is aligned with NGSS and designed for use in distance-learning or in-person instruction and comes with ready-to-use curricular supports.

 

KQED Learn Discussions

A place for students to practice engaging in argument from evidence through discussion and media-making around science concepts. Each discussion includes a video from KQED’s Deep Look or Above the Noise, lesson plans, viewing guides and transcripts in English and Spanish. Get started with one of these popular discussions:

• Are You an Optimist or Pessimist About Our Ability to Take on Climate Change?
• How Far Should We Go When Editing Genes?
• Deep Look: These Face Mites Really Grow on You

Professional Learning

Free professional development to help you hone your media making skills and incorporate media literacy into your teaching.

KQED Teach

Gain the confidence to create digital media for your classroom and to teach media literacy skills to your students with these free, online courses. 

• Start with a course like
  Evaluating Online Sources: Checking Facts and Identifying Misinformation or
  Making Infographics to Inspire Learning.
• Explore the full catalogue
• Sign up for a live workshop online or in person.

PBS Media Literacy Educator Certification by KQED

A great way to demonstrate your skills in teaching media literacy. Certification is earned by completing 8 micro-credentials.

More Education Content From KQED

• KQED Science: Award-winning science and environment coverage from the Bay Area and beyond.
• Deep Look: Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small with Deep Look, a new ultra-HD (4K) short video series.
• PBS LearningMedia: Curated STEM activities, lesson plans and resources for middle and high school.
• Mind/Shift: Explore the future of learning in all its dimensions — including cultural and technology trends, groundbreaking research, education policy and more on this blog and podcast.

KQED Classics

• Quest: Engaging, relevant science and engineering resources covering topics from biology to geology.
• Do Now:  (published 2014 - 2017).  Do you miss Do Now and want more like it? Try KQED Learn discussions.
• The Lowdown: (published 2011 - 2018). Love The Lowdown but want fresh, timely content? Try Above the Noise.