March is Women’s History Month. From homesteaders to first ladies, examine the impact of women in history in March and every month with these resources. Explore stories of women – across various disciplines – who have impacted positive change in their communities and around the world. These resources and thousands more in PBS LearningMedia are great starting points that allow students to dig deeper, examine history from a variety of perspective and be critical viewers of media, all from America’s largest classroom, PBS.
First Ladies of the United States | Collection | Grades K-13+
Discover the different roles that First Ladies have played throughout history as policy advocates, diplomats, and public figures. Get to know First Ladies throughout the history of the United States including the work of First Lady Michelle Obama and her initiatives through featured images, background essays, videos, and lesson plans.
This collection is a part of the Global Learning & Diplomacy Collection.
Single Women Homesteaders | Video | Grades 3-7
In the mid-19th century, women who were single, widowed or divorced were eligible to apply for farmland under the 1862 Homesteading Act as the head of their household. Your students learn about this era of history through their hardships and triumphs with this video from North Dakota PBS station Prairie Public Broadcasting.The 1862 Homesteading Act guaranteed free farmland to heads of households with the stipulation that the applicant must stay on the land for five years and make noticeable improvements to the land before the deed was awarded. Women who were single, widowed, or divorced were eligible to apply for land as the head of their household and many headed west into Dakota Territory. Through the reading of letters written by homesteading women and accounts of descendants, their hardships and triumphs are remembered and their perseverance is honored.
SciGirls Collection | Grades 5-8
SciGirls has the bold goal of changing how millions of girls think about science, technology, engineering and math – or STEM. Each half-hour episode highlights the processes of science and engineering, following a different group of middle school girls who design, with the help of scientist mentors, their own inquiry-based investigations on a variety of topics. They also learn how rewarding and fun it is to work with their peers, and the shows’ female mentors offer girls a glimpse of exciting STEM career possibilities.
SciGirls educational materials provide gender-equitable teaching strategies and hands-on inquiries based on the concepts modeled in SciGirls’ videos. The SciGirls approach is rooted in research on how to engage girls in STEM. A quarter of a century of studies have converged on a set of common strategies that work, and these have become SciGirls’ foundation—aka the SciGirls Seven. All SciGirls activities were created with the SciGirls Seven in mind and incorporate as many strategies as possible.