LATEST ENHANCEMENTS TO DISCOVERY EDUCATION’S AWARD-WINNING DIGITAL SERVICES ADD NEW COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS FROM GLOBALLAB, VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIENCES, AND CROSS-CURRICULAR CONTENT

Shawnee Cohn, Discovery Education
240-393-5849, shawnee_cohn@discovery.com

Stephen Wakefield, Discovery Education
240-463-2894, Stephen_Wakefield@discovery.com

–All new, inquiry-based projects from GlobalLab help students around the world develop creative, communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills–

–Unique virtual reality experiences and new content from leading educational publishers added to Discovery Education Streaming Plus and Techbook™ Series–

Silver Spring, Md. (September 1, 2016) – Discovery Education, the leading provider of digital content and professional development for K-12 classrooms, announced today the addition of innovative inquiry-based projects, virtual reality experiences, and approximately 1,500 new digital assets to its award-winning digital services. This content from leading educational publishers further empowers K-12 educators using Discovery Education Streaming Plus and Discovery Education Techbooks to create compelling cross-curricular lessons.

To further support educators using Discovery Education’s digital services to grow their students’ creative, communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills, 10 collaborative projects will be added to all Techbooks and Discovery Education Streaming and Streaming Plus. Powered by GlobalLab’s unique web-based platform, these projects help students explore data with their peers, learn content, and build skills like data analysis, reasoning, and teamwork. In addition, these new resources support educators’ efforts to integrate authentic investigations into classroom instruction. Among the new GlobalLab projects available beginning today through Discovery Education’s services are:

Make Your Mark – Created in honor of International Dot Day, this project helps students design and create their own “dot” by selecting an area of service and identifying a project they can lead to impact their community on a local, national, or global level. This project also connects students worldwide as they identify positive role models they look up to and learn who other students around the world admire.
What’s For Lunch? – In this collaborative project, students share with a global audience the contents of their lunch, look for similarities and differences of their lunch to their global peers, and examine the distribution of the main food groups needed to create a well-balanced meal.
Plant Population: By participating in this collaborative project, students will observe one type of plant in or near their school and record non-living (abiotic) and living (biotic) factors that might impact its development. Using these data, they will make comparisons to other classrooms around the world.

We are pleased to partner with Discovery Education to give classrooms worldwide access to GlobalLab projects to integrate into their curriculum and/or extracurricular activities,” said Dr. Tatsiana Krupa, President, GlobalLab. “Our collaboration with Discovery Education combines dynamic, high-quality digital content with GlobalLab’s collaborative activities to foster the development of investigation skills in students as well as critical, soft skills such as creativity, collaboration and communication.”

Discovery Education is also now offering educators using the Science, Math and Social Studies Techbooks the opportunity to further grow student engagement through an advanced level of immersive learning experiences. With lessons powered by Discovery Education’s exclusive new virtual reality (VR) content, students can explore topics such as how potential energy is transferred into to kinetic energy as they ride along with a pro skateboarder; they can travel to Africa to experience how a growing middle class changes the local economy; and they can visit the early 1900s to see firsthand some of the technological, social, and cultural impacts of the Industrial Revolution. With this absorbing new virtual reality content, educators and students alike will visit places, meet people, and experience events in an unparalleled, 360-degree experience.

Additional cross-curricular content now available through Discovery Education’s digital services includes:

10 new video field trips hosted by Reading Rainbow's LeVar Burton: These new video field trips, added to Streaming Plus and Social Studies Techbook and appropriate for grades K-5, take students behind-the-scenes of unique places they might not otherwise be able to experience, such as Ellis Island, Cirque de Soleil, and the Aquarium of the Pacific.
500 new titles from Next Animation Studio: These engaging, standards-aligned animated videos covering social studies, science and math concepts are now available in Discovery Education’s Streaming Plus, Social Studies Techbook and Science Techbook services. The animated videos cover a range of topics, from the presidential primary elections in the United States, to the technologies scientists are developing to tackle climate change. The animations help K-12 educators to capture and hold the interests of students.
50 new titles from Visual Learning Systems. Available in both English and Spanish through Streaming Plus and Science Techbook, this content allows K-12 educators and students to explore a variety of core science topics such as photosynthesis, stars and galaxies, the scientific method, the nervous system, and more.
104 new titles from The Fixies. This animated series, appropriate for elementary students grades K-5, features a child character, Tom Thomas, who works with his Fixie friends to solve science-related problems. Students will explore the inside of objects such as batteries, a cell phone, and an alarm clock, and learn the science behind how and why these items work.
15 new titles from Ancient Lights. Available in Discovery Education’s Streaming Plus and Social Studies Techbook, this series teaches students about the geography, cultures, political and cultural history of various countries including Greece, Russia, Turkey, and Israel.
25 new programs from EV Productions. This career-focused series, available in Discovery Education Streaming Plus, illustrates the characteristics and responsibilities of numerous jobs in film, television, theater, website development, veterinary medicine, and health care.
84 new titles from First American Media Group: The “Famous People of the World” series, which is also available in Discovery Education Streaming Plus and appropriate for grades 9-12, explores the life and legacy of famous artists, composers, writers, philosophers, politicians, scientists, kings, queens, and more.
300 new reading passages from Jelly Bean Scoop: Available in Discovery Education Streaming Plus, these cross-curricular reading passages, appropriate for grades K-8, cover a variety of topics including science, social studies, health and math.

“The new GlobalLab projects, virtual reality experiences and other resources recently added to Discovery Education’s digital services will help our school create modern learning environments in which students can explore a variety of critical questions and collaborate to find answers,” said Lea Anne Daughrity, Director of Instructional Technology and Library Media Services at John Paul II High School in Plano, TX. “We are looking forward to integrating these new digital resources into our lessons this school year.”

Containing thousands of standards-aligned resources, Discovery Education Streaming and Streaming Plus helps build students’ mastery in interpreting, understanding, and evaluating information across all subject areas. Teacher resources include lesson plans, instructional strategies, and content collections organized around themes. Students can access images, primary source documents, podcasts, oral interviews, books on tape, articles, and videos, and more.

Discovery Education’s Techbooks are breakthrough digital textbooks that are aligned to rigorous standards, support a comprehensive curriculum, and are updated regularly at no cost. The series encourages all learners through interactive features that change the reading level of text and enable text to be read aloud. The Techbook series saves teachers’ time with a comprehensive design that places model lessons, student activities and assessments at their fingertips. Techbooks are platform neutral and can be used in 1:1 or 1-to-many configurations and in any instructional environment.

“One of the many benefits of using digital resources for teaching and learning is that they can be continuously improved and updated,” said Kelli Campbell, senior vice president and digital learning officer at Discovery Education. “The dynamic new content from leading educational publishers recently added to our digital Streaming services and our Techbook series shows not only the incredible flexibility and utility of these resources, but also demonstrates Discovery Education’s strong commitment to providing educators the most engaging and up-to-date digital content available.”

For more information about Discovery Education Streaming and Streaming Plus, the Discovery Education Techbook series, and other services and resources from Discovery Education, visit www.discoveryeducation.com.

About Discovery Education
Discovery Education is the global leader in standards-based digital content for K-12, transforming teaching and learning with award-winning digital textbooks, multimedia content, professional development, and the largest professional learning community of its kind. Serving 3 million educators and over 30 million students, Discovery Education’s services are in half of U.S. classrooms, 50 percent of all primary schools in the UK, and more than 50 countries. Discovery Education partners with districts, states and like-minded organizations to captivate students, empower teachers, and transform classrooms with customized solutions that increase academic achievement. Discovery Education is powered by Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK), the number one nonfiction media company in the world. Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com.

About GlobalLab (https://globallab.org/en/)

GlobalLab is an e-learning environment that supports collaborative inquiry based activities. It is a new type of educational tool that integrates three major features:

a crowdsourcing network where real-life data collected by many participants from all over the world are transformed into new or re-discovered knowledge.
a purposeful community where users are united by views and insights arising from viewing and analyzing peer-generated data sets. They can place their data into regional and global contexts for a fun, innovative way to explore the world.
sophisticated, web-based authoring system that allows users to create investigations, inquiries, and surveys.

GlobalLab eliminates the difficulties of delivering inquiry-based learning, all in a safe and moderated environment. Students explore with their peers, learning content and building skills like critical thinking, data analysis, evidence-based reasoning, and teamwork. With GlobalLab learning is rooted in the real world, thus it becomes motivational, relevant, and engaging.