NEW KEN BURNS FILM “THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION” TO BE USED IN CLASSROOMS AROUND THE COUNTRY TIMED TO 250TH ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICA
PBS LearningMedia Classroom Resources for Grades 3-12 Will Be Available on Ken Burns in the Classroom Timed to Film’s Nov. 16 Premiere on PBS and PBS.org
PBS and Filmmakers to Announce Education Initiative at Virtual Event on March 12, part of National Civic Learning Week
Washington, DC – March 10, 2025 – On March 12, 2025, PBS LearningMedia, PBS’s online destination for PreK-12 teachers and students, will join filmmakers Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein, and iCivics at a virtual event for Civic Learning Week. They will discuss the extensive learning materials and experiences that will be created and curated for upper elementary through high school teachers and students around themes featured in the upcoming film, THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, co-directed by Burns and his long-time colleagues Botstein and David Schmidt. The virtual event conversation will also be a broader discussion of civic education and student engagement around America’s 250th.
Civic Learning Week is an annual week of nonpartisan events designed to raise awareness about the importance of civic education. The week (this year March 10-14, 2025) is managed by iCivics, the civic education nonprofit founded by the late U.S. Supreme Sandra Day O'Connor. Civic Learning Week brings together teachers, students, administrators and the general public to highlight the importance of civic education in sustaining and strengthening constitutional democracy in the United States.
The session - The American Revolution and Civic Learning - will take place on March 12, 2025, from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. ET. Register for the session here. The session will be introduced by iCivics CEO Louise Dubé and include Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, Social Studies Teacher and Curriculum Specialist Mary Kate Lonergan, and PBS LearningMedia VP Lori Brittain.
“The 250th anniversary of our country provides us with an extraordinary opportunity to engage students of all ages around the most important themes in our country’s history,” said Ken Burns. “The American Revolution changed how people around the world thought about individual rights, democracy and governance. By sharing these materials with students and challenging them to think about our past, we hope to further the incredible work started by Justice O’Connor and so many others who are invested in the importance of civics and history as fundamental parts of an education.”
PBS LearningMedia creates unique collections of media-centric, curriculum-aligned teaching resources and experiences for all of Burns's films, offered within the Ken Burns in the Classroom hub on the platform. For THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, PBS LearningMedia will offer the most robust initiative to date, thanks in part to a grant from the Kern Family Foundation, to expand classroom outreach around the film and the themes covered, in the lead up to the United States’ 250th anniversary in 2026.
The educational materials, which are being developed in consultation with leading scholars, including University of Virginia History Professor Emeritus Alan Taylor, partners such as The National Constitution Center, and educators from around the country, will offer new insights, perspectives, and understandings about the Revolutionary era. The materials will also be made available to a wide range of partners focused on student engagement around America’s 250th anniversary, including Colonial Williamsburg, the Smithsonian Institution, the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the Museum of the American Revolution, Monticello, Mount Vernon, and many more.
“THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION offers a powerful opportunity to deepen students' understanding of the foundational principles of civics and their knowledge of the Revolutionary era. Through PBS LearningMedia, our goal is to equip teachers with dynamic resources that help their students connect the past to the present and strengthen the skills they’ll need to participate in a democratic society,” said Lori Brittain, VP of PBS LearningMedia.
“Civic Learning Week is an important moment to engage people about history and civics with films like THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION,” said iCivics CEO Louise Dubè. “One of the messages at the heart of Civic Learning Week and the film is that we need to redouble our efforts to bring high-quality civic education to all, one community at a time.”
PBS LearningMedia will create classroom resources drawing on content and clips from the film, including key figures and events, life in the colonies and causes of the war, and consequences and legacies of the conflict. Resources will address themes raised in the film, including freedom, opportunity, democracy and the global nature of the conflict. Resources will include teaching tips, discussion questions, activity suggestions, background readings, as well as student-facing interactive resources. PBS member stations will also create classroom resources that emphasize their local histories. The materials, which will be age-specific for students, grades 3 to 12, will be designed to build students’ critical thinking skills, their ability to think in terms of cause and effect, and their ability to analyze primary sources.
PBS LearningMedia and PBS member station KQED will host a national Youth Media Challenge centered around themes drawn from THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. The Youth Media Challenge invites middle and high school students to explore how they see themselves, their world, and their future by creating original audio, video, and images. Students will respond to questions about the meanings of freedom, democracy, and opportunity, drawing on knowledge about how these ideas were articulated during the Revolutionary era and in our founding documents. Teachers can integrate the challenge into their curricula at any point in the school year and work with their students to publish media to a dedicated Challenge Showcase site.
Throughout the summer of 2025 and through the semiquincentennial in 2026, PBS LearningMedia and member stations will present multiple in-person and virtual professional learning sessions with partners, film scholars, and teachers designed to enhance teacher knowledge, skills, and dynamic pedagogical approaches to the American Revolution.
As part of the rollout for the film and the larger national conversation, the filmmakers will visit 27 markets from March 2025 through the broadcast on November 16, 2025, including an education specific
event focused on students and teachers on September 17th - Constitution Day - in New Jersey. The full schedule of events can be found here.
The materials will be accessible to teachers and students on Ken Burns in the Classroom timed to the November 16th broadcast. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION will be available to stream on all station-branded PBS platforms including PBS.org and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. The series will also be available to stream on PBS Passport and the “PBS Documentaries Prime VideoChannel.” PBS station members can view the documentary via PBS Passport as part of a full collection of Ken Burns films. For more information about PBS Passport, visit the PBS Passport FAQ website. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION will be distributed internationally by PBS International.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION is a production of Florentine Films and WETA Washington, D.C. Directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt. Written by Geoffrey C. Ward. Produced by Sarah Botstein, David Schmidt, Salimah El-Amin and Ken Burns. Edited by Tricia Reidy, Maya Mumma, Charles E. Horton, and Craig Mellish. Co-Produced by Megan Ruffe and Mike Welt. Cinematography by Buddy Squires. Narrated by Peter Coyote. The executive in charge for WETA was John F. Wilson (who passed away in November of 2024). Executive producer is Ken Burns.
Corporate funding for The American Revolution was provided by Bank of America. Major funding was provided by The Better Angels Society and its members Jeannie and Jonathan Lavine with the Crimson Lion Foundation; and the Blavatnik Family Foundation. Major funding was also provided by David M.
Rubenstein; The Robert D. and Patricia E. Kern Family Foundation; Lilly Endowment Inc.; and the following Better Angels Society members: Eric and Wendy Schmidt; Stephen A. Schwarzman; and Kenneth C. Griffin with Griffin Catalyst. Additional support for The American Revolution was provided by: The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations; The Pew Charitable Trusts; Gilbert S. Omenn and Martha A. Darling; Park Foundation; and the following Better Angels Society members: Gilchrist and Amy Berg; Perry and Donna Golkin; The Michelson Foundation; Jacqueline B. Mars; Kissick Family Foundation; Diane and Hal Brierley; John H. N. Fisher and Jennifer Caldwell; John and Catherine Debs; The Fullerton Family Charitable Fund; Philip I. Kent; Gail Elden; Deborah and Jon Dawson; David and Susan Kreisman; The McCloskey Family Charitable Trust; Becky and Jim Morgan; Carol and Ned Spieker; Mark A. Tracy; and Paul and Shelley Whyte. The American Revolution was made possible, in part, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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