PBS HONORS THE 40th ANNIVERSARY OF EARTH DAY WITH A WEEK OF ECO-FRIENDLY PROGRAMMING

April 16-22, 2010

Frog with bulging eyes.

Credit: Andrew Young

Los Angeles, CA: PBS/TCA Press Tour; January 13, 2010 -- PBS counts down to the 40th anniversary of Earth Day with new and encore programming leading up to Thursday, April 22, 2010.

New programming this week includes EARTH DAYS: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE (4/19). Director Robert Stone ("Oswald's Ghost," "Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst") traces the origins of the modern environmental movement through the eyes of nine Americans who propelled the movement from its beginnings in the 1950s to its moment of triumph in 1970 with the original Earth Day and to its status as a major political force in America.

INDEPENDENT LENS "Dirt!" (4/20) takes an interesting look at dirt and how humans regard (or disregard) it. In POV "Food, Inc." (4/21), filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer.

Along with new programming, PBS is recycling some topical programs in celebration of Earth Day. NATURE offers an encore presentation of "Frogs: The Thin Green Line" (4/18), which profiles scientists who are racing to stop the massive die-off of frogs. NOVA examines California's aggressive pursuit of a sustainable energy future in "The Big Energy Gamble" (4/20).

Thousands of hours of PBS programming are available on the PBS Video Portal. The Video Portal has released a special collection of Earth Day programming called Be Green.The collection features more than 30 new and encore programs at www.pbs.org/begreen.

PBS KIDS� also celebrates Earth Day with "PBS KIDS Share the Earth Day," featuring themed episodes and Web content on water conservation, planting and growing, nature and recycling.

Beyond broadcast, PBS Teachers will host a webinar to discuss environmental curriculum and its effect on student health, attendance, learning, tests scores and preparedness for green jobs. PBS Teachers also offers an Earth Day Activity Pack for educators to use in the classroom or to post on their classroom, school or favorite social networking Web sites. The Activity Pack is designed for multiple grade levels and contains links to Earth Day-themed education resources and activities from PBS to support environmental awareness. The new PBS Teachers STEM Education Resource Center Web site contains science, technology, engineering and math educator resources including an online video collection that explores some of our iconic STEM related content for preK-12 educators.

NEW PROGRAMMING

EARTH DAYS: AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Monday, April 19, 2010, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET, repeats Thursday, April 22, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET

Director Robert Stone traces the origins of the modern environmental movement through the eyes of nine Americans who propelled the movement from its beginnings in the 1950s.

INDEPENDENT LENS "Dirt!"

Tuesday, April 20, 2010, 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET

Farmers, physicists, church leaders, children, wine critics, anthropologists and activists talk about dirt � where it comes from, how we regard (or disregard) it, how it sustains us, the way it has become endangered and what we can do about it.

POV "Food, Inc."

Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 9:00-10:30 p.m. ET

How much do we know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families? Though our food appears the same � a tomato still looks like a tomato � it has been radically transformed. In POV's "Food, Inc.," producer-director Robert Kenner and investigative authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) lift the veil on the U.S. food industry, revealing surprising facts about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we may go from here.

ENCORE PROGRAMMING

NATURE "Frogs: The Thin Green Line"

Sunday, April, 18, 2010, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET

Large-scale die-offs of frogs around the world have prompted scientists to take desperate measures to try to save whatever populations they can.

NOVA "The Big Energy Gamble" (4/20)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET

NOVA examines California's aggressive pursuit of a sustainable energy future.

About PBS

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