PBS Learning Media provides parents with resources featuring fun STEM-powered and hands-on activities to share with their kids.
Season 12 of Cyberchase, the nation’s longest-running math series for the school-age set, continues this spring on PBS KIDS with four new episodes premiering April 17-19. Kids can tag along with the CyberSquad, right from their own living room, to explore cool and important environmental science topics like water conservation, underground ecosystems, and protecting forests – all with a math twist – and just in time for Earth Day!
PBS Learning Media is offering free resources to families for each of the new April episodes, including discussion questions, vocabulary, worksheets, and hands-on activities. The site also features lots of additional amazing Cyberchase STEM-powered things for parents and kids to do at home, like making rock candy, exploring numbers and operations with Mission Magenite, completing a series of shape, number and color patterns to Crack Hacker's Safe.
New episodes include:
“Missing Bats in Sensible Flats”
Digit’s cousin, Brigit, is in a prickly bind. Although her garden is overflowing with flowering cactus plants, they’re not bearing any apple cactus fruit. And no cactus apple fruit means no cactus apple juice –everyone’s favorite drink in all of Cyberspace! Brigit thinks she knows what’s going on, thanks to a chart she’s kept of how many bats - or in this case, how few - have come to pollinate the cactus flowers so far. Where have all the bats gone? Could it have something to do with Hacker’s new secret hideout? With a map to guide the way, Digit, Matt, Jackie, and Inez set out into the desert to find out
“Water Woes”
It's not easy being the most notorious villain in all of Cyberspace, and Hacker is really stressed out. Buzz and Delete surprise their mess-of-a-stress boss with a blissful day at Mount Bear Fresh Water Spa, full of relaxing treatments sourced from the beautiful Mount Bear River! But, when the water supply suddenly stops flowing, Hacker and the other patrons are left out to dry. With spa manager, Jules, in over his head, Buzz and Delete go to extreme measures and ask the CyberSquad for help. Using a map and spatial reasoning skills, Digit and the kids turn upstream for clues about why the spa’s water has been reduced to a mere trickle. Can the CyberSquad save the day? Or will it all just go down the drain?
“Soil Turmoil”
Trouble is brewing beneath Serene Greens! Hapo the earthworm needs help underground, but how can the CyberSquad possibly help their miniscule friend? With one zap of Digit’s “shrinkray,” the team shrinks to the size of tiny insects and portals underground. They’re literally IN the soil! The diminutive Matt, Jackie, Inez, and Digit come face-to-face with all sorts of critters that make up this thriving ecosystem. The only problem is Hapo’s home turf, Bug Bayou, is anything but flourishing. The roots are mushy, the ground is clumpy and dry, and food is scarce, causing creatures to flee to healthier ground. Something is damaging Hapo’s soil. But what? The CyberSquad digs in to get to the root of the problem.
“Hacker Hugs a Tree”
Who knew Hacker was a nature lover? Seems it all started many Cyber-years ago, when Motherboard banished him to the Northern Frontier. With only the trees to call his friends, Hacker developed a soft spot for the woodlands. That’s why he’s especially incensed when a new villain begins to zap his beloved trees into thin air. The tree-sanity must be stopped! In an unlikely pairing, the CyberSquad steps in to help Hacker. But, will they be able save the forest before it’s too late?
Also available to families is the new Cyberchase: Mobile Adventures in STEM pilot program, available in English and Spanish. The program offers easy and hands-on environmental and math activities using smartphones. Families join the six-week program by texting “eco” to 30644 and will get a new set of activities via text every week.
Additional links to clips and the new Cyberchase Learning Media resources:
Deforestation | Cyberchase
https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/cyb12-deforestation-video/cyberchase/
Pollinators | Cyberchase
https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/cyb12-pollinators-video/cyberchase/
Soil Investigation |Cyberchase
https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/cyb12-soil-investigation-video/cyberchase/
What is a Watershed? | Cyberchase
https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/cyb12-what-is-a-watershed-video/cyberchase/
Source: PBS Kids
