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
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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
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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
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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
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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: 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
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Summary: Faced with increasing cuts in government aid, grassroots organizations in the industrialized world are learning valuable lessons from their counterparts in developing countries. Never having had government funding, third-world assistance programs are showing them how to implement support-free community-based initiatives. This program demonstrates how "sweat equity" and other techniques are...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Spark classroom discussion about gender roles and evolving definitions of family with this program on worldwide birthrates. Examining trends in Denmark, Japan, South Korea, and other countries, the video uses data-mapping of childbirth statistics to construct a global picture of cultural conventions and expectations. How adults in different areas of the world view parenthood-whether or not both...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: While governments and industries reshape the world on a grand scale, countless individuals have pledged themselves to facilitating change at the grassroots level, one village at a time. This program interviews North American and European volunteers and the people in developing countries who are receiving their humanitarian and political assistance. By living together and sharing cultural...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Give students a context in which to study the world's widely varying life expectancy statistics. Focusing discussion on economic and cultural factors, this program examines dramatic discrepancies between life spans in the United States, Japan, Russia, and the developing nation of Sierra Leone-where a high infant mortality rate creates the lowest life expectancy in the world. The video presents...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The dire prediction by controversial economist Thomas Malthus that the world's expanding population would swiftly outrun its food supply has not come to fruition-yet. In this program, demographer Paul Demeny, of the Population Council; Walter Reid, of the World Resources Institute; and Max Singer, co-founder of the Hudson Institute, join Ben Wattenberg, of the American Enterprise Institute, in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: As globalization gains momentum, industrialized and developing countries are, to a greater or lesser extent, becoming increasingly similar, with middle-class luxury and abject poverty coexisting side by side. This program explores the repercussions of globalization as well as a growing resentment toward the G8 countries and nongovernmental organizations. Concerns over third-world debt,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: China may be the world's next superpower, but its wild economic growth doesn't tell the whole story. This program reveals the widening gap between Chinese urban and rural lifestyles and the escalating pressure for government action to increase educational and career opportunities in remote areas. Interviews with city dwellers whose affluence surprises even them-and with villagers struggling for...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Illustrating connections between globalization and the spread of disease, this program uses data-mapping to assess the potential impact of deadly viruses-including the much-feared and adaptable avian influenza. Outbreaks of bird flu in the Netherlands and West Nile virus in New York City illustrate the increasing mobility of exotic pathogens in an era of frequent international travel and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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
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Summary: In Canada, diversity is represented as "an ethnicity + a hyphen + Canadian." But what if you are one of the many people who don't fit into an obvious category? What if your background is a hybrid of ancestries and you live "in the hyphen"-somewhere in between, where cultural identities overlap? This program examines the experiences of poet Fred Wah and six other Canadians with one parent from a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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: 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: 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: 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