Daily Archives: September 11, 2019

CURIOSITY QUEST is an upbeat family program that explores what you are curious about. In each episode, host Joel Greene, takes viewers on an unscripted hands-on exploration to answer letters of curiosity. CURIOSITY QUEST strives to provide entertaining and educational programming for the entire family to enjoy.

airs Fridays at 2 a.m. beginning 9/6

• #901 – “Solar Boats” – Join host Joel Greene on this adventure to learn how students made their own boats and captured energy from the sun to power them and race across the lake.
• #902 – “Making Candles” – Have you ever wondered how candles are made? Join host Joel Greene as he visits a manufacturer to learn how they melt and mold various types of candles.
• #903 – “Tortilla Chips” – Did you know that tortilla chips are made from corn tortillas? Check out this episode of Curiosity Quest as host Joel Greene learns just how these crunchy treats are made.
• #904 – “Almonds” – Did you know that the state of California produces 82% of the world’s almonds? Check out this episode of Curiosity Quest as host Joel Greene explores how almonds are grown, harvested, and shipped.
• #905 – “Baseball Bats” – Join host Joel Greene and the Curiosity Quest crew as they visit Louisville Slugger in Kentucky to learn how they make wooden baseball bats.
• #906 – “Alpaca Farm” – Do you think an alpaca spits? Well, we’ve got a treat for you. Curiosity Quest host Joel Greene travels to an alpaca farm in Indiana to learn all about these fascinating animals.
• #907 – “Growing Rice” – Have you ever wondered where rice comes from? Join us on this episode of Curiosity Quest as host Joel Greene becomes a farmer for a day learning all about how rice is grown, harvested, and shipped all over the world.
• #908 – “Ostrich Farm” – Did you know the ostrich is the largest and fastest bird? You won’t want to miss this episode of Curiosity Quest as host Joel Greene learns all about the Ostrich.
• #909 – “How To Make A Bus” – City folk probably see these every day. But have you ever wondered how buses are made? The Curiosity Quest crew and host Joel Greene visit a bus manufacturer to explore how they design and create these enormous vehicles.
• #910 – “Making Furniture” – Join host Joel Greene on this episode of Curiosity Quest as he explores a furniture manufacturer to learn how they make unique wooden furniture.
• #911 – “Food Waste” – Join host Joel Greene as he explores the food industry and how we can help to prevent food waste at our schools and homes.

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Rob Stephenson and inquisitive kids take a hands-on approach to scientific exploration.

airs Fridays at 1 a.m. beginning 9/6

• #301 – “Wheels and Axels” – Difficult doorknobs, funnel races, water wheels and pinwheel power! Explore how a round wheel works together with an axle so that they rotate together. STEM Challenge: Making a rubber band powered wheel and axle. Curious About Careers: Scientist Tonya Matthews gives an interactive tour at Michigan Science Center in Detroit.
• #302 – “Resonance” – Resonant rods, rings and pipes and powerful pendulums! Explore how every object has the potential to vibrate, and those vibrations occur in different wave patterns. Resonance is adding an additional force with a matching frequency the wave. STEM Challenge: Making a membranophone. Curious About Careers: Nuclear physicist Artemis Spyrou explains how an atom-smashing cyclotron works.
• #303 – “Momentum” – Racing cans, pencil spinners, bowling ball bangers! Explore how whenever something is moving, it has momentum, and the faster it’s moving, the more momentum it has. STEM Challenge: Designing a better bobsled. Curious About Careers: Pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha describes what it takes to care for children’s health.
• #304 – “Football Science” – Football bounce and flight, sticky fingers and more! Explore how a football’s shape makes it more difficult to predict how it will bounce, while that shape helps its gyroscopic motion when thrown or kicked. STEM Challenge: Designing a water balloon helmet. Curious About Careers: Biomechanical engineer Tamara Reid Bush explains the movement of the human body.
• #305 – “Buoyancy” – Sinking stones, aluminum boats, Cartesian diver, scuba action figures, hot air balloons and more! Explore buoyancy, which is an object’s ability to float. STEM Challenge: Making a hovering balloon. Curious About Careers: Microbiologist Joan Rose discusses the workings of a water research lab.
• #306 – “Skeletal System” – Broken bones, tendon tricks, acidic exoskeletons and more! Explore the human skeletal system including bones, cartilage, ligaments, tendons, and joints; and how it stores calcium and phosphorous and produces blood cells. STEM Challenge: Making a no-hands crutch. Curious About Careers: Orthopedic surgeon and baseball team physician Julie Dodds on her career in sports medicine.
• #307 – “Rockets” – Multi-staging balloons, water bottles, air rockets and more! Explore how rockets can lift off the ground through an imbalance of forces. STEM Challenge: Designing a water bottle rocket. Curious About Careers: Astrophysicist Shannon Schmoll at Abrams Planetarium and technology manager Mary Palkovich.
• #308 – “Candy Chemistry” – Buoyant candy, marshmallow melee and more! Candy and science? It’s funny to think that candy is related to science, but it’s true! STEM Challenge: Making sugar stained glass. Curious About Careers: Audiologist Brooke Tudor explains how to properly test and care for our hearing.
• #309 – “Inertia” – Spinning eggs and more! Explore how an object that is still or at rest will stay at rest, while an object in motion will keep moving unless another force acts on it. STEM Challenge: Making ‘eggciting’ safety restraints. Curious About Careers: Technology coordinator Michelle Massey and pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha.
• #310 – “Electric Batteries” – Human batteries, electric lemon, potato possibilities and more! The Curious Crew learns that batteries are used to change chemical energy into electrical energy. STEM Challenge: Designing a better battery. Curious About Careers: Scientist Tonya Matthews and Nuclear physicist Artemis Spyrou.

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This series tells the story of early settlement, conquest and immigration; of tradition and reinvention; of anguish and celebration; and of the gradual construction of a new American identity from diverse sources that connects and empowers millions of people today. The series covers the 1500s to the present day.

airs Wednesdays at 2 a.m. beginning 9/4

• #102 – “Empire of Dreams” – See how the American population is reshaped by Latino immigration starting in 1880 and continuing into the 1940s: Cubans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans begin arriving in the U.S. and start to build communities in South Florida, Los Angeles and New York.
• #103 – “War and Peace” – Trace the World War II years and those that follow, as Latino Americans serve their new country by the hundreds of thousands – yet still face discrimination and a fight for civil rights in the United States.
• #104 – “The New Latinos” – Review the decades after World War II through the early 1960s, as swelling numbers of immigrants from Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic seek economic opportunities.
• #105 – “Pride and Prejudice” – Witness the creation of the proud “Chicano” identity as labor leaders organize farm workers in California, and as activist’s push for better education opportunities for Latinos, the inclusion of Latino studies and empowerment in the political process.
• #106 – “Peril and Promise” – Examine the past 30 years, as a second wave of Cubans and hundreds of thousands Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans flee to the U.S., creating a debate over undocumented immigrants that leads to calls for tightened borders, English-only laws and efforts to brand the undocumented as a drain on public resources. Simultaneously, the Latino influence is booming in business, sports, media, politics and entertainment. Latino Americans become the largest and youngest growing sector of the American population.

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The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) brings its signature investigative journalism back to public television this spring with another installment of Reveal, a four-part series presented by KQED. Reveal is a first-of-its-kind television show that brings viewers deep into investigations and captures the drama and high stakes of the reporting process. The magazine-format program leads with a documentary story followed by shorter pieces and a “true cartoon” animation, and each hour-long episode explores crucial, and often underreported issues: from Terrorist Hunting to finding the families of Jane and John Doe’s. Hidden stories, uncovered; that’s what this series is all about.

airs Wednesdays at 1 a.m. beginning 9/4

• #202 – “Freedom Fighters” – Reveal features two-time Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s short documentary “Freedom Fighters,” which profiles three remarkable women battling for equal rights in one of the world’s most dangerous countries for women. In addition, the episode delves into the potential dangers women face when they donate eggs to fertility clinics and the story of two women who gave up everything to help those at risk of deportation.
• #203 – “Nellie Bly Makes The News” – Director Penny Lane’s “Nellie Bly Makes the News” headlines an episode of Reveal showcasing animated documentaries and innovative, groundbreaking storytelling. Using diverse stylistic approaches, the hour covers a wide range of topics, from the story of a muckraking journalist who changed the game for women in reporting before women even had the right to vote to the surprising origin story of the humble strawberry.
• #204 – “The Dead Unknown” – Reveal examines what the Justice Department has called “the nation’s silent mass disaster.” For decades, there was no way to link the lists of missing persons around the country with the unidentified John and Jane Does in morgues and cemeteries, leaving many families in the dark about their loved ones’ fate. Director Michael I Schiller’s “The Dead Unknown” follows investigators in real time over the course of a year as they attempt to find the identity of one 50-year-old cold case. The hour also looks at efforts to prevent deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border and the Standing Rock Sioux’s historic faceoff with the U.S. government decades before the oil pipeline.

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EARTH FOCUS, a partnership between KCETLink and the Thomson Reuters Foundation provides audiences with urgent local and global environmental coverage that spotlights the issues, impact and possible solutions from a variety of unique perspectives.

airs Tuesdays at 3 a.m. beginning 9/3

• #1001 – “Sea Level Rising: Living with Water” – Louisiana is learning from Hurricane Katrina. Forecasts are dire for Louisiana to experience the second-highest sea level rise in the world. There is a big movement brewing in New Orleans to build adaptive “resilience zones.” In Southeast Louisiana, the native peoples of the Isle de Jean Charles have become the first U.S citizens moving within their homeland displaced by climate change.
• #1002 – “Climate Migration” – Populations are dramatically shifting as climate change drives migration. Droughts and floods are driving many people away from their rural, farming communities into big cities. We see how this is manifesting in Mongolia and examine the factors leading to the new community of Haitian people living in limbo at the border between Mexico and the U.S.
• #1003 – “City Planning” – Two cities, San Francisco and Freetown, brace for climate change using vastly different methodologies. San Francisco’s developers are building expensive real estate on floodplains as officials try to heed expert projections on future sea levels. On the other side of the world, a deadly mudslide caused by torrential rains and deforestation in Sierra Leone shows the consequences of city planning that doesn’t take climate change into account.
• #1004 – “Adaptation to Global Water Shortages” – Anticipating future water needs, two regions on opposite sides of the world turn to technology for answers. Western Morocco, near the Sahara Desert, is currently facing unprecedented drought and groundwater mismanagement. But an ancient method of gathering moisture from fog is being taught to 13 villages, allowing people to have a level of local control over their most basic need. Central Valley California: The food basket of the world uses nearly 80 percent of the entire state’s water supply. Yet there are still close to one million people who don’t have access to clean drinking water. Researchers at UCLA may change that through a technology that would allow unincorporated rural communities to control how contaminated water is treated.
• #1005 – “Future of Food” – Communities and innovators all over the world are creating new sustainable food sources that are resilient to climate change and growing populations. In Madagascar we see how villagers are closing off marine areas to allow the fish supply to replenish at a natural pace. In San Diego, California, aqua culturists are exploring open ocean farming as a more sustainable model for the fishing industry.
• #1006 – “Urban Habitat” – With so much biodiversity in the highly urban area of Los Angeles, species are thriving despite human interference, and in some cases because of it.

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IQ: SMARTPARENT equips parents and caregivers with the knowledge and tools they need to successfully guide their children in the use of digital media and technology. The three-part series addresses children’s media consumption – from helping them discern between fiction and reality to safeguarding their online identities. Host Angela Santomero created and executive produced the acclaimed children’s television series Blue’s Clue on Nick Jr., and Super Why! and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood on PBS KIDS. Santomero also hosts PBS’ The Parent Show at PBSparents.org and writes a personal blog about parenting at AngelasClues.com.

airs Mondays at 2 a.m. beginning 9/2

#402 – On this episode of iQ: smartparent, discover family past times that do double-duty: they’re fun and educational. Experts from Adventure Outdoors and the after-school program Brashear Kids demonstrate how to turn an ordinary scavenger hunt into a high-tech adventure with the hot new hobby called geocaching and they show how geocaching and GPS technology can be used in the classroom to support STEM learning. Two young people from Brashear Kids provide a demonstration of geocaching in the studio. Then, an educator from the Allegheny Intermediate Unit reveals ways families can get creative with science experiments with arts and crafts supplies they already have lying around the house. Finally, the Education Coordinator of the youth makerspace Digital Harbor Foundation of Baltimore provides tips for families to make the most out of a visit to a makerspace, including suggestions for inter-generational maker collaborations.

#403 – In this episode of iQ: smartparent, the topicis social and emotional learning. The goal is to help children build the confidence they need to succeed in the classroom and in life. An expert from the nationally renowned Fred Rogers Center explains ways to use digital media for social and emotional learning, based on the teachings of iconic children’s television host Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Another guest from the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children explains how teachers are being trained to incorporate digital media in social and emotional learning initiatives in the classroom. We also welcome an expert from Common Sense Media, an independent nonprofit organization offering reviews and resources to help children and families navigate the world of media and technology. This guest gives guidelines for families to evaluate and choose the best apps to boost social awareness skills. Finally, we meet two inspiring teachers who created a culturally relevant STEM/STEAM curriculum to engage underserved middle-school aged girls in math and science. Called “Sisters eS.T.E.A.M.,” this program demonstrates the link between self-esteem and academic achievement and after hearing from the teachers, the young women of Sisters eS.T.E.A.M. appear in the studio to perform a motivational exercise that’s part of their science curriculum.

#404 – In this episode of iQ: smartparent, math matters in the digital age. Today’s classrooms are undergoing a high-tech revolution and experts explain ways parents can help their children make math make sense. Matt Larson, President of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and co-author of the book Balancing the Equation: A Guide to School Mathematics for Educators and Parents, discusses math literacy, Common Core math standards, tips for parents to talk to teachers about mathematics education methods in the classroom, and appropriate ways to assist children with their math homework. Megan Cicconi, a math teacher representing the computer science/coding advocacy group Code.org, discusses the need for coding skills in the 21st century, and ways to structure computer science education to complement mathematics education. And, guest Betsy Stein of the Boys &Girls Club of Western Pennsylvania presents a fun family activity to practice mathematics skills using sports statistics. In addition, this episode includes two field packages showing innovative ways to build mathematics skills using hands-on science projects.

#405 – In this episode of iQ: smartparent, experts explain the range of resources available at libraries, in person and online, demonstrating the many ways that libraries are transforming lives and serving as the new “community living room.” Guest Felton Thomas, Jr., President of the Public Library Association, a branch of the American Library Association, explains services offered in libraries, including ones to build skills in education, employment, entrepreneurship, empowerment, and engagement. Another guest, Marie Belle Vargas, is a Library Media Specialist at PS1x Cortlandt School in the South Bronx of New York, and the winner of the 2016 Common Sense Media Award for Educator of the Year. She explains the innovative ways she’s turned her school library into a true community resource, offering parents as well as students in a socioeconomically challenged neighborhood a range of activities to build technology, literacy, language, and hands-on science skills. And, Mary Francis Cooper of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh provides tips for using online library resources for everything from homework help to personal research and adult education. In addition, this episode includes two field packages. One explains digital badging and the other illustrates ways that libraries are using gaming to draw teens into their local libraries.

#406 – In this episode of iQ: smartparent, all parents hope to be role models for their kids – but when it comes to media habits, kids are paying attention to how mom and dad use media and the habits they’re picking up from you aren’t always good. Clinical psychologist and nationally renowned author Catherine Steiner-Adair, discusses her book The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age. She reveals ways to alter tech so it serves as a complement to daily life and learning, rather than a barrier to authentic family moments. Then, Dr. James Huguley, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Social Work and Center on Race and Social Problems, discusses ways for families of color to help their children interpret negative and stereotypical portrayals of minorities in the media. And, Shelley Pasnik, Director of The Center For Children and Technology and author of the PBS Parent’s Guide to Children and Media, explains healthy ways for parents to join their children in media consumption and media-making to promote thoughtful use of digital technology. In addition, this episode includes a field package featuring a pediatrician from Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and a researcher from the University of Pittsburgh who explain the significant ways in which digital devices contribute to sleep disruption, and the impact it’s having on young people’s physical and emotional health.

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A documentary that profiles five teenaged girls in a Ugandan refugee settlement. With tenacity, tenderness and imagination, they approach their uncertain futures to create new lives of their own choosing. The film, told in the voices of the refugee girls, witnesses the power of girls struggling for agency and self-determination against the odds, and inspires audiences to reframe their ideas about the daily realities, hopes, and dreams of refugees. airs 9/19 at 4 a.m.

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