Supporting our teachers and parents
For young children learning how to read, there’s an animated video series for that.
For elementary school students learning about math, there’s an online program for that.
For middle school students learning about science and the Great Lakes, there’s a television show for that.
All of these programs and more are part of the new Michigan Learning Channel (MLC), a collaboration between Michigan public television stations, including Delta College Public Media, to provide educational programming and curriculum-aligned instructional resources for parents, educators and students.
The channel, which launched in early 2021, uses a variety of media platforms and broadcast channels to deliver free programming to students in pre-K through 12th grades. Delta College Public Media began airing the station in early February on channel 19.5. The channel is also available as a digital livestream and on demand at MichiganLearning.org.
Thomas Bennett, general manager of Delta College Public Media, said there’s a crucial need for this service right now, during the pandemic and in the future.
“Public television has a long history of developing educational content in partnership with the communities we serve, and MLC takes this one step further,” said Bennett.
The MLC delivers lessons in 30- and 60-minute blocks for each grade level throughout the day, which repeats during the evenings and weekends. All content is offered at no cost to schools, families and caregivers, and all of it can be accessed online.
A statewide effort
Participating public television stations include Detroit Public Television, WDCQ from Delta College Public Media, WKAR Public Media from Michigan State University, WGVU Public Media from Grand Valley State University, WCMU Public Media from Central Michigan University and WNMU-TV from Northern Michigan University.
Coming soon: Breached 2
The same team who produced the widely watched “Breached! The Tittabawassee River Disaster”
is making a second part of the documentary, with plans for a premiere this fall.
In May 2020, the Tittabawassee River reached a record-breaking high caused by the failure of the Edenville and Sanford dams. The flooding produced damage to 2,300 homes and businesses in five counties, and displaced thousands of people.
In the second part of Breached, producers Bob Przybylski and Ron Beacom check in with families who were interviewed in the first documentary, and focus on new topics, such as the safety and erosion of the lake beds, navigating the process of recovery and stories of community support.
“Residents coming together to support each other is a big theme in Breached 2,” said Przybylski. “We talked with several businesses that had to rebuild, including a hardware store in downtown Sanford that set up a satellite store to sell supplies for people rebuilding their homes and businesses.”
Watch the first episode of the documentary at DeltaPublicMedia.org.