Exploring America

Exploring America focuses on ways that people in the United States are interacting with natural resources (forests, wildlife, farms, fisheries, or water). Students are engaged in an inquiry process to discover the positive and negative effects of human interaction with resources in each U.S. region. The programs help guide students in this process by providing background information, assistance with mapping, and featuring students engaging in investigations.

Students will discover that there are different perspectives regarding how people use natural resources and problems related to sustainable resource use. Exploring America encourages students to consider how natural resource use is important in their lives and to propose how resources should be managed for their future.

A Teacher's Guide is available. Each of the seven instructional activities in the guide provides background information and suggested activities to be conducted before and after viewing a program. Social studies and language arts standards that are addressed in each program are listed in the Teacher's Guide, and are also included in "student language" to be posted in the classroom as students work through the unit.