“3-2-1 Contact,” the public-television science show for 8- to 12-year-olds, is being repackaged into 15-minute “modules” for classroom use under a grant by the National Science Foundation.
The Children’s Television Workshop produced 225 episodes of the show over 12 years, and it continues to air over many Public Broadcasting Service stations across the country.
Under the nsf grant, the ctw will create 30 program segments, each of which will teach a single concept, show its application in real life, and provide students with hands-on experimental activities, said Cheryl Gotthelf, the project’s director at the ctw
The video segments, titled “Classroom Connection,” will be broadcast over PBS next fall for “off-the-air” taping by schools. A print lesson plan for teachers will also be available.
More information about “Classroom Connection” is available from the school services department of Children’s Television Workshop, One Lincoln Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10023.
As part of its promotional effort for the new film version of “Hamlet,” Warner Bros. is distributing a video study guide and other materials to 20,000 high schools across the country. The video features the actor Mel Gibson, who plays the lead, in a discussion of Shakespeare and “Hamlet” with a group of Los Angeles high-school students.
The Franco Zeffirelli-directed film was screened last November at the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in Atlanta, and Mr. Gibson was on hand to introduce the film and take questions from educators.
Tickets to the movie are also available to students and teachers at a reduced price. School officials should call (800) 395-8439 to order ticket coupons or for more information on the educational materials.
The long legal campaign that culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education will be the subject of an hourlong documentary next month on PBS.
“The Road to Brown” is scheduled to air at 10 P.M. Eastern time on Feb. 13. (Check local listings.) It focuses on Charles H. Houston, the dean of the Howard University Law School and a chief counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the 1930’s. He laid the groundwork for a generation of black lawyers, including the future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, by gathering evidence of unequal educational opportunities for black and white schoolchildren.
The documentary, produced by Kinocraft and California Newsreel, is being presented on PBS by the University of Virginia.--mw
