The United States didn’t become a nation overnight. It took decades of protest, argument and compromise, and a lot of disagreement about what kind of country it should be. This playlist follows that story through nine turning points. It starts with the political traditions of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy and a British tax on printed paper that pushed the colonies toward revolt. From there it moves through the Declaration of Independence, a first attempt at national government that didn’t hold, and the hard-won Constitution that replaced it. It ends with the young republic’s first real tests: George Washington’s presidency, the split into rival political parties, and an armed uprising over a tax on whiskey.
Each video runs a few minutes and covers one turning point, so the series can be watched start to finish or one video at a time.
Every video comes with printable discussion questions, vocabulary, a writing prompt, and classroom activities, all available from the video page. The questions ask students to think about what moved the colonies from protest to independence, why the Articles of Confederation failed, and why the founders’ arguments over federal power didn’t end once the Constitution was signed.
Teachers and Parents: The videos run in chronological order, starting with Indigenous political traditions and ending with the first major challenge to federal authority. Ways to use them:
- Unit introduction: Play the full series to open a unit on the founding for students aged 11–18.
- Lesson starter: Assign The Stamp Act before a lesson on taxation and representation, or the Constitution videos before a class debate on compromise.
- Compare and contrast: Pair The Articles of Confederation with A Constitution Created Through Compromise and have students list what changed and why.
- Then and now: Use The First Political Parties in America to start a discussion on how party divisions began and what they look like today.
In this lesson, students will collaborate to understand how marine life is affected by human actions. The Dive into this engaging lesson where your students will uncover how human actions affect marine life. Kick things off with a fun game of Three Truths and a Lie about the ocean to spark curiosity and get everyone talking. Then, break into small groups and tackle a jigsaw activity as students watch short, thought-provoking videos about ocean animals and human impact. Together, they’ll share insights, tackle discussion questions, and use their newfound knowledge to create eye-catching infographics. These creations will inspire others to take action and protect our incredible oceans!
In this lesson, your students will step into the shoes of Antarctic scientists! They'll dive into the fascinating world of Antarctic research stations and unique wildlife with video clips from BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet and Frozen Planet. After exploring the videos and researching more about this frozen continent, your students will write a creative journal entry from the perspective of a research scientist sharing their experiences in Antarctica. You’ll wrap up the lesson with a meaningful class discussion about why studying Antarctica matters and how the discoveries made there could shape our world.
To help your students dive deeper into the video content, we created this bundle of video response worksheets. We designed these worksheets to be used with any video and to keep students focused as they watch and enhance comprehension and retention. (Please note that some worksheet types are better fits for certain content and grade levels). Assign students the same one, mix them up, or let them choose!
To help your students dive deeper into the article content, we created this bundle of article response worksheets. We designed these worksheets to be used with any magazine article and to keep students focused as they read and enhance comprehension and retention. (Please note that some worksheet types are better fits for certain content and grade levels). Assign students the same one, mix them up, or let them choose!
Long before the U.S. Constitution was written, five nations in what is now New York State had agreed to govern together under a shared set of laws. That story, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, is where this Kahoot! begins. From there, it moves across North America and through time: the cliff dwellings Ancestral Puebloans built into the canyon walls of Mesa Verde, the forced removal of the Cherokee along the Trail of Tears, the effort to bring buffalo back to the Great Plains, and the lives of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities in Canada today. Some answers may surprise you, and some will change how you think about history you thought you knew.
Teachers: Use it to open or review a unit on Indigenous history, government, or human rights, or pair it with the rest of the Indigenous Peoples Around the World Kahoot course.
Most of us don’t think much about our blood until we get a paper cut or a scraped knee. 16-year-old Vianne has had to think about hers for most of her life. She has thalassemia, a serious blood disorder. Her body couldn’t make enough healthy hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body. She needed blood transfusions every month, and she was often exhausted.
Then she received a new gene-editing treatment.
First, doctors collected some of her stem cells. These are cells that haven’t yet become a particular type, so they can copy themselves and turn into other kinds of cells. In a laboratory, scientists edited the cells’ DNA so they would make more fetal hemoglobin, the kind babies make before they’re born. This extra hemoglobin makes up for the faulty kind that causes thalassemia. Months later, the edited cells were put back into Vianne’s body.
Doctors call the result a “functional cure.” Vianne still has the genetic condition, but its main symptoms have eased so much that she no longer needs transfusions. That means fewer hospital visits and much more energy.
The same treatment is also being used for sickle cell disease. 14-year-old Joel is just starting the process. It isn’t easy: patients need chemotherapy first, to clear space in their bone marrow for the edited cells. But Vianne says it was worth it.
The end of the Cretaceous reshaped life on Earth, with the asteroid impact that wiped out more than 70% of species leaving a world where mammals could rapidly diversify. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode "The Bat" follows that turning point to the emergence of early bats, including Icaronycteris, whose elongated fingers formed wings and whose specialized ear structures suggest that echolocation was already developing.
The combination of flight and echolocation allowed bats to exploit an entirely new environment, hunting for food in the night sky and eventually spreading across almost every continent. The video also connects the bat’s remarkable adaptations to features shared by all mammals, including jaws, complex teeth, a through gut, and specialized middle-ear bones, highlighting the deep evolutionary connections between bats, humans, and other mammals.
The evolution of jaws transformed how the ancestors of bats and other vertebrates could feed and survive. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode The Bat follows the ancient fish Metaspriggina, whose unusual front gill arches may have been an early step toward the development of jaws, allowing its descendants to move beyond filter-feeding and actively bite and capture prey.
Because the cartilage involved in early jaw evolution rarely survives in fossils, scientists also look to developing embryos for clues. The video shows how the same genes that control the formation of gill arches also help shape jaws, providing evidence of their shared evolutionary origin and showing how a structure once involved in breathing and feeding was transformed into one of the most important innovations in vertebrate evolution.
The Ediacaran Garden was home to some of the earliest and strangest animals on Earth, living among vast microbial mats that provided an almost endless food supply. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode "The Bat" explores the mysterious world of these ancient creatures and follows a tiny, soft-bodied organism thought to be a distant ancestor of bats and humans.
With no hard parts to leave fossils behind, this creature’s story must be pieced together from clues about modern animals and the evolutionary changes that followed. Mutations gradually transformed a simple gut into a continuous digestive tube with a separate opening for waste — a seemingly simple innovation that allowed animals to eat continuously and digest food far more efficiently.
In the Devonian, the oceans were filled with predators, making it dangerous for fish to protect their vulnerable eggs. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode "The Ostrich" explores how some fish with strong, fleshy-lobed fins may have gained an advantage by venturing into isolated pools and streams where their eggs were safer from aquatic predators.
Over generations, those fins became increasingly adapted for movement on land, with bones, joints, and digits eventually forming the limbs of early land vertebrates. Fossils such as Seymouria reveal the emergence of the familiar five-digit hand, connecting the anatomy of ancient amphibious animals to the limbs of elephants, ostriches, lizards, and humans today.
As animals evolved larger, more complex bodies, reproduction had to evolve with them. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode "The Ostrich" traces the evolution of sexual reproduction from specialized egg and sperm cells to the emergence of separate male and female sexes, using fossils and living animals to explore how these strategies developed.
The story begins with ancient Cambrian animals and the evolution of specialized gametes, then considers why some early animals may have been hermaphrodites, producing both eggs and sperm. The video explores how mutations and evolutionary pressures could have led to separate sexes, with sperm becoming specialized for movement and eggs becoming larger and more nutrient-rich — a specialization taken to an extraordinary extreme in the single-celled beginnings of an ostrich egg.
The United States didn’t become a nation overnight. It took decades of protest, argument and compromise, and a lot of disagreement about what kind of country it should be. This playlist follows that story through nine turning points. It starts with the political traditions of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy and a British tax on printed paper that pushed the colonies toward revolt. From there it moves through the Declaration of Independence, a first attempt at national government that didn’t hold, and the hard-won Constitution that replaced it. It ends with the young republic’s first real tests: George Washington’s presidency, the split into rival political parties, and an armed uprising over a tax on whiskey.
Each video runs a few minutes and covers one turning point, so the series can be watched start to finish or one video at a time.
Every video comes with printable discussion questions, vocabulary, a writing prompt, and classroom activities, all available from the video page. The questions ask students to think about what moved the colonies from protest to independence, why the Articles of Confederation failed, and why the founders’ arguments over federal power didn’t end once the Constitution was signed.
Teachers and Parents: The videos run in chronological order, starting with Indigenous political traditions and ending with the first major challenge to federal authority. Ways to use them:
- Unit introduction: Play the full series to open a unit on the founding for students aged 11–18.
- Lesson starter: Assign The Stamp Act before a lesson on taxation and representation, or the Constitution videos before a class debate on compromise.
- Compare and contrast: Pair The Articles of Confederation with A Constitution Created Through Compromise and have students list what changed and why.
- Then and now: Use The First Political Parties in America to start a discussion on how party divisions began and what they look like today.
In this lesson, students will collaborate to understand how marine life is affected by human actions. The Dive into this engaging lesson where your students will uncover how human actions affect marine life. Kick things off with a fun game of Three Truths and a Lie about the ocean to spark curiosity and get everyone talking. Then, break into small groups and tackle a jigsaw activity as students watch short, thought-provoking videos about ocean animals and human impact. Together, they’ll share insights, tackle discussion questions, and use their newfound knowledge to create eye-catching infographics. These creations will inspire others to take action and protect our incredible oceans!
In this lesson, your students will step into the shoes of Antarctic scientists! They'll dive into the fascinating world of Antarctic research stations and unique wildlife with video clips from BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet and Frozen Planet. After exploring the videos and researching more about this frozen continent, your students will write a creative journal entry from the perspective of a research scientist sharing their experiences in Antarctica. You’ll wrap up the lesson with a meaningful class discussion about why studying Antarctica matters and how the discoveries made there could shape our world.
To help your students dive deeper into the video content, we created this bundle of video response worksheets. We designed these worksheets to be used with any video and to keep students focused as they watch and enhance comprehension and retention. (Please note that some worksheet types are better fits for certain content and grade levels). Assign students the same one, mix them up, or let them choose!
To help your students dive deeper into the article content, we created this bundle of article response worksheets. We designed these worksheets to be used with any magazine article and to keep students focused as they read and enhance comprehension and retention. (Please note that some worksheet types are better fits for certain content and grade levels). Assign students the same one, mix them up, or let them choose!
Long before the U.S. Constitution was written, five nations in what is now New York State had agreed to govern together under a shared set of laws. That story, the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, is where this Kahoot! begins. From there, it moves across North America and through time: the cliff dwellings Ancestral Puebloans built into the canyon walls of Mesa Verde, the forced removal of the Cherokee along the Trail of Tears, the effort to bring buffalo back to the Great Plains, and the lives of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities in Canada today. Some answers may surprise you, and some will change how you think about history you thought you knew.
Teachers: Use it to open or review a unit on Indigenous history, government, or human rights, or pair it with the rest of the Indigenous Peoples Around the World Kahoot course.
Most of us don’t think much about our blood until we get a paper cut or a scraped knee. 16-year-old Vianne has had to think about hers for most of her life. She has thalassemia, a serious blood disorder. Her body couldn’t make enough healthy hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body. She needed blood transfusions every month, and she was often exhausted.
Then she received a new gene-editing treatment.
First, doctors collected some of her stem cells. These are cells that haven’t yet become a particular type, so they can copy themselves and turn into other kinds of cells. In a laboratory, scientists edited the cells’ DNA so they would make more fetal hemoglobin, the kind babies make before they’re born. This extra hemoglobin makes up for the faulty kind that causes thalassemia. Months later, the edited cells were put back into Vianne’s body.
Doctors call the result a “functional cure.” Vianne still has the genetic condition, but its main symptoms have eased so much that she no longer needs transfusions. That means fewer hospital visits and much more energy.
The same treatment is also being used for sickle cell disease. 14-year-old Joel is just starting the process. It isn’t easy: patients need chemotherapy first, to clear space in their bone marrow for the edited cells. But Vianne says it was worth it.
The end of the Cretaceous reshaped life on Earth, with the asteroid impact that wiped out more than 70% of species leaving a world where mammals could rapidly diversify. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode "The Bat" follows that turning point to the emergence of early bats, including Icaronycteris, whose elongated fingers formed wings and whose specialized ear structures suggest that echolocation was already developing.
The combination of flight and echolocation allowed bats to exploit an entirely new environment, hunting for food in the night sky and eventually spreading across almost every continent. The video also connects the bat’s remarkable adaptations to features shared by all mammals, including jaws, complex teeth, a through gut, and specialized middle-ear bones, highlighting the deep evolutionary connections between bats, humans, and other mammals.
The evolution of jaws transformed how the ancestors of bats and other vertebrates could feed and survive. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode The Bat follows the ancient fish Metaspriggina, whose unusual front gill arches may have been an early step toward the development of jaws, allowing its descendants to move beyond filter-feeding and actively bite and capture prey.
Because the cartilage involved in early jaw evolution rarely survives in fossils, scientists also look to developing embryos for clues. The video shows how the same genes that control the formation of gill arches also help shape jaws, providing evidence of their shared evolutionary origin and showing how a structure once involved in breathing and feeding was transformed into one of the most important innovations in vertebrate evolution.
The Ediacaran Garden was home to some of the earliest and strangest animals on Earth, living among vast microbial mats that provided an almost endless food supply. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode "The Bat" explores the mysterious world of these ancient creatures and follows a tiny, soft-bodied organism thought to be a distant ancestor of bats and humans.
With no hard parts to leave fossils behind, this creature’s story must be pieced together from clues about modern animals and the evolutionary changes that followed. Mutations gradually transformed a simple gut into a continuous digestive tube with a separate opening for waste — a seemingly simple innovation that allowed animals to eat continuously and digest food far more efficiently.
In the Devonian, the oceans were filled with predators, making it dangerous for fish to protect their vulnerable eggs. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode "The Ostrich" explores how some fish with strong, fleshy-lobed fins may have gained an advantage by venturing into isolated pools and streams where their eggs were safer from aquatic predators.
Over generations, those fins became increasingly adapted for movement on land, with bones, joints, and digits eventually forming the limbs of early land vertebrates. Fossils such as Seymouria reveal the emergence of the familiar five-digit hand, connecting the anatomy of ancient amphibious animals to the limbs of elephants, ostriches, lizards, and humans today.
As animals evolved larger, more complex bodies, reproduction had to evolve with them. This clip from BBC’s Evolution episode "The Ostrich" traces the evolution of sexual reproduction from specialized egg and sperm cells to the emergence of separate male and female sexes, using fossils and living animals to explore how these strategies developed.
The story begins with ancient Cambrian animals and the evolution of specialized gametes, then considers why some early animals may have been hermaphrodites, producing both eggs and sperm. The video explores how mutations and evolutionary pressures could have led to separate sexes, with sperm becoming specialized for movement and eggs becoming larger and more nutrient-rich — a specialization taken to an extraordinary extreme in the single-celled beginnings of an ostrich egg.