PBS World Explorers is a new collection of videos from PBS Learning Media. The PBS World Explorers collection includes sixteen short videos about famous explorers throughout history. Some of the explorers featured in PBS World Explorers include Leif Ericson, John Cabot, and Zheng He. You’ll also find the usual suspects in the collection including Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and Juan Ponce de León. It’s also interesting to note that PBS World Explorers includes 20th Century explorers Alan Shepard and Neil Armstrong.

Applications for Education
Each of the videos in the PBS World Explorers collection is intended for audiences in grades four through eight. The videos can be downloaded from PBS Learning Media and or shared via Google Classroom.

After watching a few of the videos in the PBS World Explorers collection ask your students how some of the explorers’ travels might have been different if they had access to 21st Century technology. You might also ask them to find examples of people who are explorers in the 21st Century.