Exploring North Carolina in the Schools

Since its inception in 2005, Exploring North Carolina has been watched with particular excitement by students, teachers and school administrators across the state. Each episode in the series — a unique partnership between the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, UNC-TV and Natural World Productions — is a mini-adventure featuring detailed information on the plants, animals, geology and history (natural and social) of North Carolina’s greatest places. Now, thanks to the support of the William R. Kenan Trust, DVDs containing selected episodes of the series are being delivered at no cost to middle and secondary public schools statewide.

A dedicated group including teachers, naturalists from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and staff from series creators Natural World Productions, have been working for the past year to segment a dozen ENC episodes into smaller topic-driven chapters. These three- to five-minute chapters are designed to assist educators in bringing images and stories of the natural world into their classroom, as well as to provide students with accessible home study aids. In addition, the group developed curriculum-correlated lesson plans and viewing guides to help educators explore specific subjects more deeply.

The episodes — which range from the importance of butterflies to the extinction of the wooly mammoth — are available not only on DVD but also online at iTunes University and will soon be available on the Museum’s Web site. The group is currently discussing how to make these same materials available to private schools, home schooled students and other recognized educational institutions at a minimal cost. The William R. Kenan Trust has already provided funding to develop the next set of shows and curriculum materials.

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The first 11 enhanced episodes include:

101: Birds of Winter — see large but graceful birds of winter (snow geese and tundra swans) in action as they make their way around their seasonal southern home.

102: Roanoke Superhighway — discover this major historical corridor for Native Americans and European settlers and one of the state’s greatest conservation success stories.

103: Measuring the Mountain —learn the storied history and controversies behind the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi River.

104: Fire in the Longleaf Pine —take a long, hard look at the natural history and future of these tall timbers, whose current scarcity is in part due to a lack of forest fires.

105: Colors of the Earth — examine the geologic processes that helped create the mountains, Piedmont and coastal plain of North Carolina and the precious stones thereon.

106: Fossil Fields — travel back in time to visit lost worlds beneath Piedmont clay and the sandy soils of the Coast.

107: Edge of Life — take a closer look at the numerous plants and animals whose southern- or northern-most ranges occur in North Carolina.

202: Natural Boundary — look at the many regional factors affecting our climate, including ocean currents, elevation differences and rainfall.

203: Man and Mammoth — examine the most prominent theories relating to the demise of wooly mammoths and other mega fauna in the Southeast and North America.

301: Beauty with Six Legs —visit the world of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and learn why these species are among our most important neighbors.

307: Climate Change — look at the factors that have affected climate change in the past and those that will influence our climate and sea level in the future.