Filming has begun for Balancing Public Space with Public Health. Harry Wiland and Dale Bell are traveling across the country documenting stories of people who are making efforts to improve the public's health by focusing on the built environment.

The innovative Going to Green Sustainability Curriculum and Video series was launched on April 22nd, 2009 in honor of Earth Day 2009. This package is available through the online PBS Shop website.

The pilot episode for the America's Family Farmers series is nearing completion. This episode focuses on Chris Cadwell's famous heirloom tomatoes and features recipes from celebrity chef and James Beard award winner Suzanne Goin.

Media & Policy Center: Education

Education is considered by Americans to be the single most important long-term issue our country faces. After protecting our borders, public education is the government activity with the single most profound and far-reaching effect on the national character. However, despite all the attention paid to education, attempts to improve our schools and our educational system have generated more questions than answers and more conflict than consensus about teaching, learning, schooling and education.

an excerpt from Which Way American Education?

We are approaching this challenge in two ways. First, we are developing media programs that explore and analyze these issues in depth. For instance, Which Way American Education? will explore and examine lingering and growing questions about K-12 public education in a search for deeper understanding of the issues that face parents, teachers and policymakers today.

In addition, we are moving our own work into the educational domain, by designing curricula around the topics addressed by our media projects. Our first effort in this area is the development of a curriculum -- Going To Green -- that uses materials from our Edens Lost & Found PBS series as the foundation for a 20-unit high school / community college curriculum on sustainabilty and environmental awareness. Through this project and others like it, we hope to inspire new generations of thinkers and doers to take part in our society and work to benefit us all.

Education For Social Action

Going To Green is a high school and community college curriculum built from Edens Lost & Found, our PBS series on sustainability and urban redevelopment. It is the first in a series of curricula that seeks to put what we have learned from our media projects into action.

Which Way American Education?

This project will analyze the relationship between what (and how) we teach our children and who we, as a society, are, and will become. A series of PBS broadcasts will focus on controversial issues in education, with profiles of leading educators, researchers, and thought-leaders used to focus and complement the investigation of these issues.