UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A collection of PBS and WPSU educational resources to help support educators, students and families adapt to learning and teaching at home is now available through WPSU, thanks in part to a partnership between the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the state’s seven public media stations.
The curated resources for public media’s Learning at Home initiative include hours of free educational and entertaining videos, activities and games, and offers communities with limited internet access use of instructional TV programming.
The initiative is part of a collaborative effort between Pennsylvania’s public media stations and the state’s Department of Education, which was announced Tuesday by Secretary of Education Pedro A. Rivera.
“The resources we are making available today to our school communities will help guide us through this difficult time and position us to successfully return for the next school year,” Rivera said. “We commend those schools that have already been providing quality instruction for their students during this closure and trust that these additional resources will enhance the conditions under which all schools are supporting students during this unprecedented event.”
WPSU serves more than 515,000 households and 105 school districts in 24 counties in central Pennsylvania. In the state, public television reaches more than 12.4 million Pennsylvanians serving large diverse, rural and underserved audiences.
Through the partnership, caregivers and educators can also visit the WPSU Learning Families Resources website to view free videos, lessons and activities geared toward children of all ages that support learning at home.
“Our station’s mission to help enrich learning through public media is more critical than ever,” said Isabel Reinert, executive director and general manager of WPSU Penn State. “We’re all doing our best to adjust to a new normal, and we hope these educational resources can provide caregivers, educators and children with important tools while we deal with this new teaching and learning environment.”
WPSU’s resources are divided into three sections: resilience and caring for each other, family learning and educator professional development. Activities include how to talk to children about what is happening and empowering them to be helpers; educational games and more from PBS KIDS, the PBS Parents website and WPSU’s Science-U @ Home; language arts and math lessons for children in grades K-12; and educator resources through PBS LearningMedia.
Visit the WPSU website for more information. WPSU is an outreach service of Penn State.