Summary: Over 100 million children worldwide have never spent a day in school. One in four does not complete even five years of basic education. Now, 182 nations have promised to provide access to free and compulsory education for every child in the world-by 2015. To test the reality of that sweeping commitment, this Wide Angle installment profiles children in Japan, Kenya, Benin, Brazil, Romania,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: In 2003, the Wide Angle program Time for School profiled children in seven countries-Afghanistan, Benin, Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya, and Romania-as they started their first year of school, often in the face of great adversity. Three years later this Wide Angle episode returns to visit each child, updating the progress of their educational and personal development. The similarities and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The war of the sexes, like any war, needs leaders and followers. Using a military-style competition between male and female test subjects, this program examines the different ways in which men and women exercise power, set goals, construct hierarchies, and perform teamwork. A chain of command, incorporating clearly defined roles and responsibilities, quickly materializes among the male...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Packing the trunk, finding the right road, parking in a tight spot-are these masculine tasks, best accomplished with a man's mechanical aptitude and spatial reasoning? This program resists broadly brushed stereotypes, but does identify disparities in the ways men and women operate machines, manipulate tools, focus on tasks, and navigate. Accompanying two teams as they race to organize and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Why do girls demonstrate greater reading and writing ability than boys? Is the female brain hardwired for faster verbal development? Should men let women do the talking? This program studies language differences between the sexes and explores the possibility that many communication skills are gender-specific. Following two teams of well-educated adults as they undergo a crash course in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: When asked to describe birth from a baby's perspective, a group of women talk about fear, elation, and other feelings-while their male counterparts summon only physical sensations. What causes such a contrast? This program explores the divergent emotional tendencies of men and women, throwing gender differences into bold relief through spontaneous theatrical exercises and expert commentary....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Looks, personality, intellect, bank account-the reasons for attraction can't be predicted. Or can they? This program investigates ways that men and women evaluate potential lovers and life partners, and shows how male and female criteria may be more similar than many think. Creating a relaxed, club-like setting in which a small group of singles meet, flirt, and discuss their goals, the program...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: With the advent of Bernhard Riemann's zeta-hypothesis, the study of prime numbers took on astonishing new dimensions-including a way to predict the appearance of primes. This program focuses on the numerical landscape which Riemann's calculations opened up and examines the work of subsequent mathematicians who challenged the notion of a finite set of prime numbers. Using state-of-the-art 3-D...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Many consider Alan Turing to be the father of computer science-mainly because of his cryptography machine, which cracked the German code during World War II. But Turing created his device before the war-not for military purposes, but in the hope of disproving the Riemann hypothesis. This program gives an account of Turing's unresolved zeta function research, the tragic conclusion of his life,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: In segment one of this program, ABC News anchor Ted Koppel and correspondent John Donvan investigate the endemic nature of corruption in Russia, where bribery is commonplace and paying protection money is considered a business expense. In segment two, Koppel and billionaire Boris Berezovsky, identified as the unseen force behind Vladimir Putin's rise to power, discuss Berezovsky's recent foray...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: The special characteristics of prime numbers have intrigued and confounded mathematicians since ancient times. Outlining the basics of primes-including their unique multiplicative properties and their supposedly random appearance in the number line-this program details the early history of prime number theory, beginning with discoveries that took place in the Hellenistic world. The film...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines three main activities of the cell: energy storage and release, protein synthesis, and cell reproduction. Students take a closer look at important organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts, and the roles they play in cell metabolism. Also examined are proteins, amino acids, ribosomes, DNA, RNA, genes, chromosomes, transcription, and translation. Mitosis is clearly...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Taking viewers back to the Roaring Twenties, this program examines the Broadway of the Jazz Age-the era of Runnin' Wild, George White Scandals, and Shuffle Along, which helped reopen Broadway's doors to African-American artists. The film also features unique talents like the Marx Brothers, Al Jolson, the Gershwin brothers, and the songwriting team of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. But the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
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Summary: West Side Story not only brought unconventional subject matter to the musical stage, it ushered in a new breed of director-choreographer and a need for performers who could sing, dance, and act. But by the time Jerome Robbins’ last original musical, Fiddler on the Roof, closed in 1972, the world of Broadway had changed even more radically. Rock ’n’ roll, civil rights, and the Vietnam War took...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines 20th-century music from the perspective of its most fundamental force-rhythm. It shows how western orchestral music has freed itself from the domination of melody and explored the richness of musical pulse. Starting with the driving power of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, Rattle uses works by Gustav Mahler, Sibelius, and modern composer Steve Reich to show that the labels...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1893, the intersection of Broadway and 42nd was nobody's idea of "the crossroads of the world." But by 1913, Flo Ziegfeld had transformed the area into an entertainment mecca. This program tells Ziegfeld's story, introduces many of the era's key figures-such as Irving Berlin, Fanny Brice, Bert Williams, and George M. Cohan-and culminates with a look at Ziegfeld's 1927 production of Jerome...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this virtual journey through the cell, viewers become familiar with cells and their properties. The program describes and shows examples of cells of many shapes and sizes, and explores the structure and functions of different types of cells. Eukaryotes and prokaryotes are defined, and plant and animal cells are compared. Emphasizing cells as the basic building blocks of all organisms,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program describes a great musical culture in decline in turn-of-the-century Vienna, and discusses how that decline led to the musical revolution whose reverberations are still felt today. Names like Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg still strike terror in the hearts of many concert-goers. With the help of Simon Rattle, however, we hear in their powerful, brooding music the collapse of the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: Producer David Merrick conquered Broadway in 1981 with an adaptation of the movie musical 42nd Street. But soon the biggest hits were arriving from an unexpected source-London. This program illustrates the reshaping of the Broadway musical as the curtain fell on the 20th century and reopened on the 21st. From Stephen Sondheim’s contemplative Sunday in the Park with George to blockbusters like...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2004
View online at AVOD
Summary: Perhaps no members of European royalty rejected wealth and embraced poverty so utterly as Elizabeth and Margaret, Hungarian princesses and members of a ruling family that produced ten saints. Filmed amidst the spectacular vistas of Hungary's medieval past, this program traces the lives of Elizabeth, queen of Thuringia, and her niece, Margaret, comparing and contrasting their asceticism and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: A 14th-century English mystic who enclosed herself for life in order to fully develop her relationship with God after a series of revelations, Julian of Norwich and her writings are still studied by Christian theologians. Her prose, some of the most terrifying and compelling, is the first to refer to God as "She," forging the way for inclusive language that is used in many Bibles today. This...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Striking in areas where vaccines tend to be out of reach, the 2005 Indian Ocean tsunami produced fears of an immediate cholera epidemic. But one district in southern India showed the world how to defy the odds, clearing contaminated debris and working with UNICEF to distribute clean water, thus keeping cholera at bay without the help of drugs. This film travels to Tamil Nadu where aid workers...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: This program travels to Cambodia, where 1 in 10 people carry hepatitis B, a major cause of liver cancer. Mothers often transmit the virus to their babies during childbirth, and children can pass the infection to each other through even the most minor cuts and scratches. At London's Hammersmith Hospital, pioneering new surgery makes it possible for patients to survive advanced liver cancer. In...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Over a half-million women in the world get cervical cancer every year, with nearly 80 percent in developing countries. Human papilloma virus (HPV) causes the cancer and is therefore among the worst instigators of female cancer mortality worldwide. A vaccine is now available against the disease, but how effective is it, and can it save lives in poor, remote regions as well as wealthy areas? This...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011