Tech Tips for Teachers: Intelligent Design on Trial and other gems from Nova

The acclaimed PBS program Nova offers a wealth of online resources. Recent episodes can be watched for free. Projected onto a whiteboard or SmartBoard with ceiling mounted speakers this can be quite an experience. Each episode is divided into 5-10 minute segments together with a written transcript so you can preview it and choose exactly which parts of the program to view with your class. Each episode also has educational links and interactive activities connected to it. Nova even has a site devoted to teachers where you can search for Teacher's Guides by subject.


Nova's homepage with information about all programs is here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/. Their site devoted to teachers is here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/.


One episode that might be of particular interest to many of our students is Intelligent Design On Trial. This episode focuses on the recent controversy over the Dover, Pennsylvania School Board's mandate to teach Intelligent Design together with Evolution and the court case that this initiated. You can view the entire episode here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html. This episode's website with supporting links is: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/. There is another PBS website devoted to Evolution here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/.


Another episode of interest for both our history and Torah Studies departments is one devoted to the Bar Kochba's letters. Here is the link to the program: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/scrolls/program.html. Here is the supporting site for this episode with many useful links: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/scrolls/.


For recent history, this episode about Sputnik is particularly interesting. You can watch the program here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sputnik/program.html. You can view the supporting site here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sputnik/