The Lowdown is the content hub for KQED’s News Education project. A collaboration between KQED's Education and News departments, the project's specifically geared towards high school educators as a resource for teaching with the news and creatively integrating current events into core curriculum to encourage student civic engagement.
Most content can be used to address Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts, which emphasizes on media literacy, narrative non-fiction, argument-based writing and primary source analysis.
Why teach with the news?
For starters, headlines are often a source of provocative and continually fresh material that can be used to easily augment established curriculum. Whether you’re teaching about the New Deal or macroeconomics, ecology or culinary arts, news headlines are full of relevant, real-world examples and issues that help illustrate and animate textbook concepts. Incorporating the news into established lesson plans is also an excellent way to directly engage and inform students, and encourage active and participatory learning.
For more on media literacy and using multimedia applications in the classroom, visit KQED’s Media Literacy Resources.
What can I find on the site?
The site has loads of multimedia explanatory content about everything from California's historic drought to how Facebook makes its billions. Search for content by browsing categories in the header menu or via specific media types in the homepage sidebar menu.