Summary: Illegal deforestation, slash-and-burn practices, poverty, land disputes-these are among the many problems associated with farming in Madagascar. This program guides viewers through the real-world challenges of building sustainable agriculture in the country. Outlining reasons why many growers are unable or unwilling to leave outmoded techniques behind, the film visits community offices that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Characterized as an LDC or Least Developed Country, the nation of Chad wrestles with drought, population growth, and resulting tensions between farmers and herders. This program investigates hydraulic projects and mediation initiatives that are fostering relationships between Chad's food growers and its nomadic, livestock-centered cultures. Overviewing the basic causes of Chadian land disputes...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: A city shouldn't be a problem, says Jaime Lerner, the former mayor of Curitiba. "It should be a solution." This program explores innovative planning, engineering, and conservation at work in the Brazilian metropolis as it transcends many of the problems plaguing other South American cities. The film spotlights fully modernized public transportation and recycling systems, a "Citizenship Street"...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1532, 168 Spanish conquistadors arrived in Peru. They were exhausted, outnumbered, and terrified, and ahead of them were camped 80,000 Incan troops. And yet within just 24 hours, more than 7,000 Inca warriors were slaughtered, the Incan emperor languished in chains, and the victorious Europeans began what would become a brutal reign that would leave its marks throughout the Americas. This...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why do urban crime rates soar in some wealthy countries while dropping in others? This program analyzes that question using data-mapping to find telltale patterns in Japan and the United States. With the Japanese crime rate increasing in 90 percent of the nation, a data map based on locations and peak times of criminal activity sheds light on deteriorating conditions in city outskirts. Opposite...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Coffee is second only to oil as the world's most valuable traded commodity, but small-scale producers rarely profit from it. This program reveals the hardship and uncertainty faced by coffee farmers in Guatemala, and how many are taking steps to obtain better prices and build better lives. Analyzing the country's traumatic history and the lingering effects of its civil war, the video sheds...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Year by year the tourist trade has dwindled in fictional Pingwah Falls, leaving the town practically bankrupt. When a plan was unveiled for a modern resort, everyone's hopes rose.until they learned the land is home to a threatened species of bird. In this Fred Friendly Seminar moderated by Harvard Law School's Arthur Miller, panelists including former county supervisor Tom Mullen; Christopher...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Unlike the primarily east-to-west conquest of the Americas, European incursions into sub-Saharan Africa proceeded south-to-north-an approach, climatically speaking, that did not favor the invaders. Cattle and crops failed to thrive, and indigenous diseases decimated the newcomers, yet still that vast region was subdued. How? This program tells a story of colonization and exploitation that shows...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: A hub of trade for centuries, Singapore is now an economic powerhouse. This program explores factors that have enabled Singapore to thrive, including its location, its high-tech labor force, and its wide variety of cultural groups and nationalities. Interviews with the deputy manager of the nation's port, conversations with citizens from a spectrum of ethnic backgrounds, and colorful displays...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Close to the Russian border, far removed from Mongolia's polluted and overcrowded capital city of Ulaanbaatar, an ancient herding culture fights to maintain its identity-and its survival. This program examines the nomadic communities of the Mongolian plains and their resistance to change, despite growing pressure on many herders to modernize and migrate to urban areas. Viewers meet some who...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: When an 11-year-old Paraguayan boy named Silvino Talavera died from pesticide poisoning in 2003, his name became a rallying cry in the fight against intensive soya production. This program recounts the tragedy and the legal, political, and economic impact of "agritoxins" in Latin America. Opening with a poetically filmed reenactment and moving on to feature key players in the story, the film...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Carved in stone or scratched in clay, the first maps appeared at least 5,000 years ago. This program chronicles the rise of geographical awareness-manifested not only in crude cartography, but also through word of mouth and narratives such as Homer's Odyssey and the Viking sagas. Clearly illustrating the forces behind navigational learning and excursions into the unknown, this program presents...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In Papua New Guinea, a local man asked Jared Diamond a question that penetrates to the very heart of the issue of global inequality: "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [material goods], but we black people had little cargo of our own?" In this program, Diamond traces the trail of history and proposes that a society's potential for advanced development lies not in race or...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Home to more biodiversity than either Europe or North America, Costa Rica has shown the world how to benefit from the environment without destroying it. This program treks across the Central American nation with a spotlight on ecotourism and how it fits into Costa Rica's overall economy. Visits to a banana farm, a coffee plantation, the Monteverde Cloud Forest, and the Tortugero National Park...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Virtually every reef system in the world is endangered, and the island nations of the South Pacific provide some of the most troubling examples. This program examines the uncertain future of tropical offshore ecosystems using the French collectivity of New Caledonia as a case study. Viewers accompany lagoon protection crew members as they patrol fragile marine reserves by boat; an itinerant...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In an age of globalization, companies are scrambling to blend the ideals of social justice with the concept of a free-market economy. Drawing on case studies from around the world, this program focuses on progressive efforts being made by businesses to unite profits and principles. Issues under consideration include the practice of social responsibility through ethical investment policies and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Satisfying one's hunger is a primal act which most Westerners never connect to global issues. But the diets and farming systems of wealthy countries can be directly linked to starvation in the underdeveloped world. This program sheds light on the international tragedy of hunger and malnutrition, emphasizing that the problem is one of distribution, not production. Filmed in Asia, South America,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program-a valuable tool for introducing the concepts of energy security, antiterrorism, and managing change at the global level-identifies the roots of violent conflict by way of specific examples. Through discussion of territorial conflicts (India/Pakistan, Israel/PLO), genocides (Rwanda, Srebrenica), terrorism (al Qaeda, IRA, ETA), and hybridized violence such as that found in Sudan,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Defining the typical New Yorker has always been impossible; today, the definition of a Londoner is nearly as elusive. This program travels London's increasingly cosmopolitan neighborhoods, sorting through perspectives on immigration and resistance to it. Interviews with leaders and everyday citizens reveal distrust in several quarters; Lord Nazir Ahmed and East London Muslims cite examples of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Most elementary-age children exude innocence and optimism. What about kids who face extreme poverty? This documentary focuses on the plight of underprivileged nine-year-olds across the world-revealing their hardships and challenges as well as the light-hearted spirit they often exhibit in spite of their surroundings. Traveling to Egypt, Rwanda, India, Cambodia, Romania, Brazil, and New York...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Use this program to illustrate connections between fish stock depletion and growing tensions over ocean resources. The exhaustion of West Africa's fisheries is shown to have economic consequences a hemisphere away-specifically in Japan, which depends on Moroccan production for much of its octopus imports. Heavy fishing by European fleets in Senegalese waters-and the 1995 "Turbot War" between...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The aim of this program is to excite students about geographic information systems and encourage the use of GIS in the classroom. Spotlighted applications of GIS include ways that urban planners in India are using it to map traffic flows; how it's being applied in London to plans for projected mass transit use during the 2012 Olympics; how it's being used by disaster response teams to prepare...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Dramatic changes over the past 20 years have created a tech-savvy Indian middle class. This program details the economic strength of the "new" India, its ongoing problems of unemployment and poverty, and how these issues are linked to overpopulation. Outlining the country's 5,000-year history, the video focuses on the southern city of Bangalore, also known as the Silicon Valley of India, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In Luang Prabang, amidst the customary begging of Buddhist monks and the irksome giddiness of camera-wielding tourists, history lies waiting on street after street of traditional architecture. This program takes viewers into the heart of the Laotian city, where builders and bureaucrats contest the fate of land, houses, and public structures while traditional artisans and architects work to...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010