PBS 45 & 49 January 2003 PBS Prime Time for Teachers

American Experience presents
Chicago: City of the Century

Airdates: Monday Jan. 13-Wednesday, Jan 15, 9 pm to 10:30 pm each night
Educator Rights: 1 Year
Online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/

Chicago: City of the Century, a new three-part series from American Experience, charts Chicago's breathtaking growth from a remote fur trading post to America's second largest city. Yankees from the East transformed the French and Indian settlement of 300 people into a monument to unfettered capitalism. In just three decades, Chicago became the world's largest railroad hub, largest lumber market, largest grain port and, as poet Carl Sandburg would write, "hog butcher to the world."

Chicago's location, first as a canal terminus, then as a railroad hub, was key to its success. According to historian William Cronon, Chicago "became the funnel that delivered an entire ecosystem, the entire western landscape, into the waiting markets of the eastern seaboard of the United States and of Europe."

NOVA

Airdate: Tuesdays at 8 pm
Educator Rights: 1 Year
Online: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/

Now entering its 30th year, NOVA, television's premier science series, continues to take viewers on a dramatic ride of discovery to the ever-changing frontiers of science. NOVA distinguishes itself by bringing science to life through its human stories, bringing exclusive glimpses of the research behind the headlines and the innovators who will shape tomorrow's world.

Spies That Fly (Tuesday, Jan. 7 at 8 pm)
In the air war in Afghanistan, a 50-foot wingspan plane known as the Predator flew high over Taliban positions, enabling U.S. commanders to direct lethal fire with pinpoint accuracy. What's different about Predator is that it flies by remote control, with no pilot on board to get in harm's way. In the wake of its success, the military is developing an incredible range of "smart" robotic planes, from tiny flyers that can fit in a pocket to soaring jets that fly halfway around the world. The next generation of pilotless planes will be capable of far more than aerial spying and in time may revolutionize the way all future wars are fought. In Spies That Fly, NOVA presents the latest hot designs -- including footage freshly released by the Pentagon -- and reveals some newly declassified chapters from the exciting history of airborne spying.

Last Flight of Bomber 31 (Tuesday, Jan. 14 at 8 pm)
A U.S. military team discovers the wreckage of a World War II bomber on the edge of a volcano in the remote wilderness of Kamchatka, Russia. Nearby are the remains of some of its crew. Who were these men and what was their role in the war? Is there any explanation for the crash? And what became of the missing crew members, listed as missing-in-action since 1944?

Ancient Creature of the Deep (Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 8 pm)
It was thriving long before the dinosaurs ruled the earth, and scientists thought it had died out more than 70 million years ago. But in 1938, fishermen on a South African trawler netted the carcass of a massive, scaly, blue-black fish, and suddenly the long-extinct creature from the depths was back, stunning scientists and capturing headlines across the world. The most famous of all "living fossils," the coelacanth, boasts a story with more improbable twists than a crime thriller. The chance discovery in 1938 was topped by the even luckier spotting in 1997 of a new sub-species lying on a slab in a fish market in Indonesia, thousands of miles from the original find.

Secrets of the Dead: Tragedy at the Pole

Airdate: Wednesday, Jan. 15 from 8 pm to 9 pm
Educator Rights: 1 Year
Online: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/

"Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale."
- Captain Robert F. Scott

In November 1911, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his British team began a trek across the ice of Antarctica, striving to be the first to reach the South Pole. Traveling 900 miles in two months, the men battled unimaginable conditions. They arrived at their destination in January 1912, only to discover that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had beaten them by a month. Devastated, Scott's team embarked on the return leg of their expedition. Months later, their bodies were found just 11 miles from a depot of food and heating oil.

When word of the deaths reached England, Scott was hailed as a courageous hero. But in the 90 years since the failed expedition, scholars reviewing the case have come to think of him as a tragic incompetent whose death was the result of his own ill-conceived decisions. Why did he bring four men with him to the Pole, when he had originally planned on three? Why did the men pull their own sleds -- laden with more than 200 pounds of equipment and supplies -- rather than give that task to animals? Why did they continue to lug 35 pounds of rock samples, even after their strength waned? Above all, why were they so unprepared for the frigid weather conditions?

Such questions haunted Dr. Susan Solomon, a Boulder-based scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Baffled by the disconnection between Scott's expertise and the outcome of his mission, Solomon launched a reinvestigation into the case. Secrets of the Dead relays her quest for the truth in Tragedy at the Pole.