GBH, the leading multiplatform creator of public media in America, and PBS LearningMedia are launching a Civics Collection, a set of educational resources designed to encourage civic understanding and engagement among middle and high school students. These free, multimedia-rich tools, developed by veteran educators and educational media producers with input from an Educator Advisory Group, a Youth Advisory Group, and a multidisciplinary Civics Leadership Council, aim to help educators engage students more dynamically.
The Civics Collection on PBS LearningMedia is designed to support students in acquiring civic knowledge, developing civic understanding through applied historical and present-day examples, and engaging and participating in civic affairs. The Collection will include interactive resources to facilitate student learning about multiple perspectives and diverse viewpoints. Newly designed instructional support materials for teachers and students facilitate easy inclusion into existing curricula, and activities and readings extend the learning and teach civics skills.
Speaking about the development, Seeta Pai, Executive Director of Education at GBH, said:
Students are struggling to acquire the civic knowledge and foundation necessary as they become voting-aged adults. The new Collection will draw on media to engage students, spark their interest in civics, and promote the active learning of skills by connecting the basic principles from the nation’s founding documents to issues they care about in their everyday lives.
Furthermore, independent student activities focus on civic knowledge and skills, which include identifying and applying civic knowledge, building media literacy, engaging in civil discourse, analyzing civic engagement, understanding the lawmaking process and assessing American democracy. Every resource is grounded in one or more of this nation’s founding documents.
Lori Brittain, Vice President of PBS LearningMedia, commented:
Engaging students in civics is essential to understanding how our country works. So, we are thrilled to provide free access to the new Civics Collection on PBS LearningMedia. Each resource in the Collection is designed to help students build the skills they need to shape their communities and understand their vital role in our democracy.
After completion, the Collection will include over 180 resources, including videos from trusted and popular public media brands and partners, an exciting new digital video series featuring youth and civic change-makers, interactive timelines, maps, images, and self-paced interactive lessons.
Susan Goldberg, President and CEO of GBH, also added:
Being a well-informed participant in our democracy starts with a solid foundation of civics in the classroom. The Civics Collection provides educators the resources to prepare a new generation to understand what it means to be an American fully.
The Civics Collection was developed based on background and empirical research with hundreds of teachers and multiple rounds of input from an Educator Advisory Group, a Youth Advisory Group, and a multidisciplinary Civics Leadership Council. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) provided significant funding for the research, development, and production of the Civics and U.S. History Collections. Both collections are available free of charge to teachers nationwide.
PBS LearningMedia, a partnership of PBS and GBH, is an online destination that offers free access to thousands of resources from PBS stations and partners. These digital tools complement classroom instruction — from videos, images and interactives to lesson plans, articles and primary sources. For free to all educators pre-K through 12th grade, it offers classroom-ready content aligned to state and national standards. It is compatible with teachers’ tools, such as Google Classroom, and contextualized with supporting materials.
As the largest producer of content for PBS and partner to NPR and PRX, GBH delivers compelling experiences, stories and information to audiences wherever they are. GBH produces digital and broadcast programming that engages, illuminates, and inspires through drama, science, history, arts, culture, and journalism.
