Micro-Internship: KSPS PBS LearningMedia
Kaitlyn Hawker
Blog Editor-in-Chief
KSPS PBS is our local Public Broadcasting Station that serves Spokane, Spokane Valley, Coeur d’Alene, as well as Calgary and Edmonton in Alberta, Canada. They are a non-profit, funded primarily by donations whose mission is to: “connect, enrich, and inspire all the communities we serve” (KSPS About).
The micro-internship in question, however, is focused on their online educational content. PBS has a learning platform called PBS LearningMedia where any station from across the country can upload lessons, videos, and teaching tools for free use by teachers and students. KSPS is one of the stations that contributes material, but they’ve become increasingly aware that the material currently up isn’t as robust as it could be.
Enter Kaitlyn Hawker. I’m a senior Secondary Education and English Major in the Honors Program with a minor in English Language Learners. I’m currently spending two days a week at Shadle Park High School observing and sometimes teaching 9th-12th graders as I prepare for Student Teaching next Spring. As some of you may have noticed, I’m also the Blog Editor of this here Honors Blog, making me uniquely qualified for this Micro-Internship. It is my job at KSPS to evaluate the content that is currently there, develop new content when necessary, and adapt all of it into an easier to use format for teachers and students.
Micro-Internships are goal and project based, so KSPS brought me on with the purpose of revamping their most visited educational materials on PBS LearningMedia. These materials are:
- Secret Mission: Hanford
- Helens: Out of the Ash
- Injustice at Home: The Japanese-American Experience of World War Two
I began with “Secret Mission: Hanford” primarily because I knew the least about it, but also because I liked the framing of the Hanford Project as a Secret Mission. That sort of title grabs middle schoolers’ attention. “Secret Mission” is a Social Studies and ELA focused documentary and lesson for 6-12th graders teaching about Washington’s nuclear legacy and hand in the Manhattan Project during World War II.
First, I looked at what was there. “Secret Mission” is a 50-minute KSPS PBS documentary split up into fifteen sections. The lesson plan included with the documentary is mostly pre-learning activities and a cumulative project – which are fine, but not helpful for a teacher hoping to teach about the history of Nuclear Reactors in Hanford, WA. The lesson was also set up as if students would be viewing the entire documentary start to finish, which is not the way it is formatted on the educational website.
Seeing that I had very little to work with in terms of adapting current material, I checked in with the Education Director, Angela Riley, and after getting the go-ahead, began making new activities and materials based on each section of the documentary.
The segments range in topics from the basics of nuclear physics to minority workers at Hanford Engineer Works to Hanford propaganda campaigns and songs inspired by the landscape. They are also pretty short: the longest segment is just under seven minutes and the shortest is under a minute and a half. Keeping this in mind, I know I’m not building full 55-minute lessons based on a two-minute clip. In comes discussion questions, reading protocols, and reflection activities that I’ve spent the last three years participating in and learning how to lead.
Once I’m finished, I’ll go over my lessons with Angela Riley, format them for the website, and move on to one of the other topics like Mount St. Helens or Japanese Incarceration in Washington State.
While I didn’t see myself signing up for a Micro-Internship when they were first introduced for a variety of reasons (too busy, no education options), I’m glad this Internship crossed my path. It’s a great experience as a future educator and I know my work here will help so many other teachers across the nation looking to teach these topics.