TEACHERS: Try our Lessons free — get a 30 Day Premium Trial
Throughout American history, voting has been a contested right. Thought of as a right of citizenship, voting has, in fact, been restricted to varying degrees since the foundation of the country. Even today, barriers exist that make it difficult even for citizens to vote. In this Civics101 story, an author discusses the contested history of voting in America, how voting has changed over time, and some of the 21st century obstacles that impact the right to vote today.
Read More
During the Holocaust, six million Jews and others were killed by Germany’s Nazi regime, led by Adolf Hitler. Some Jews and members of other persecuted groups survived by fleeing to safety or going into hiding. Others were freed from concentration camps when World War II ended in 1945. What happened to these survivors? Listen to hear from one Holocaust survivor in Israel and learn why she and many others currently live in poverty.
Read More
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 not only changed many Americans sense of security, but it also changed the organization of the security apparatus of the U.S. Federal Government. It led to the creation and funding of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This department receives billions of dollars in funding every year to improve state and federal readiness efforts. But there is a growing debate about the role and effectiveness of the department and the way this money is spent. Listen here to learn more about the strengths and weaknesses of the Department of Homeland Security.
Read More
Homer’s poetry has been read both in translation and its original Greek for thousands of years. The Iliad and the Odyssey contain many of the most enduring images and characters in literary history. As time passes, the original texts become more and more distant and the language, even with updated translations, become more daunting. One woman translated these stories, some into music, so that the language is accessible. Listen to hear how a new translation of Homer’s works aim to bring those characters to life for a new generation.
Read More
Picture this: a gardener hears a humming sound in a garden full of flowers. What is the source of the noise? It might be a hummingbird! These tiny creatures fly so fast that they can be hard to see. Listen to hear a scientist describe the unique features of a hummingbird, including extra fast wing speed and a quick metabolism, that make them expert flyers, and learn how to attract them to a garden.
Read More
Two men imprisoned in Somalia began tapping messages to each other through a thick wall. One man had Leo Tolstoy’s novel “Anna Karenina”. Because they were forbidden to talk, one man tapped the story out on the wall, letter by letter, to the other man. The more the other man heard of the novel, the more he understood his own situation and feelings and ultimately, how to get through one of the most difficult experiences of his life. Listen to this story about how a book can inspire empathy and change your life.
Read More
Published in 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin changed the way Americans viewed slavery and was a driving force that steered the political direction of the country during the 1850s as well. For many Americans, the characters in the novel are familiar, although their names have taken on new and unexpected meanings, and the novel’s theme still resonates today. Listen to learn more about the cultural impact of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in America and discover Harriet Beecher Stowe’s inspirations for writing the novel as well as how the novel still reminds us of what “freedom” means today.
Read More
Adults have a wide range of opinions about teenagers and other youth, positive and negative. Often, these are based on stereotypes, not necessarily experience. Regardless of how these opinions were formed and what they are, they certainly have an impact on young people everywhere. In Baltimore, these opinions and the reactions to them may have a lot to do with the social unrest that has built up in the city. Listen to learn about how a group of teenagers from Baltimore feel they are viewed by adults, and how they feel about those views.
Read More
Some basic economic norms shape how most retail stores operate. These include: attract as many potential shoppers as possible; make it easy for them to find what they need; and make it appealing for them to return often so that they will spend money at the store. But some members-only warehouse stores break all those rules--and succeed anyway. Listen to find out why these stores do it differently, and why, despite breaking the rules of retail, they thrive.
Read More
Animals communicate through sounds, touch, visual signals, and scent, and each species has its distinct communication methods. In this audio story, Earth Ranger Emma presents examples of communication among various species, including elephants, and explains the messages and emotions that are being communicated. Listen to learn how and why animals communicate, how animal sounds reflect an environment’s health, and how people can safely respond to communications from animals.
Read More
Middle school history teachers have different strategies for how to engage students in learning. One way is to use topics that kids already find interesting and connect them to historical events. One example is insects. A children’s writer featured in this story, uses stories involving bugs to teach important events in history such as the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark. Her belief is that through topics that appeal to kids’ love of things gross and skeevy, important learning can happen.
Read More
Democracy is a form of government in which citizens have input into the rules that govern them. In the United States, people elect representatives at the local, state, and national levels, and those elected representatives make laws. Listen to learn about how democracy works in the United States and how voting rights have changed since the nation began.
Read More
When a person lays their head down to sleep, their brain does not stop thinking. The thoughts they have while they sleep are their dreams. Sleep allows the brain to recover from the work it does during the day. While the brain recovers, the logical part of the brain takes a break, which means during dreams anything can happen. Listen to a psychiatrist explain more about how dreaming works and how someone can have the ability to influence their dreams.
Read More
In the mid-1890s, when the U.S economy was in a depression, news spread across the country that rich deposits of gold had been found in the Yukon and Klondike regions of Alaska and Canada. Thousands of people flocked to the frozen Northwest in the hopes of striking it rich. The voyage was dangerous and conditions in the remote gold fields were exceedingly harsh, but this didn’t stop the unprecedented wave of migration that came to be known as the Yukon Gold Rush. Listen to hear about three individuals of the time: a prospector, a con man, and a detective.
Read More
The Industrial Revolution changed forever both the way goods are made and the lives of the workers who make them. In the early years, workers did not like the changes. They challenged the factory owners, sometimes violently destroying the machinery that was transforming their lives. These protesters were called Luddites. Listen to learn about how these protestors tried to keep their world from changing.
Read More
Michael Jordan is considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time. From 1982, when he helped North Carolina win the NCAA title, to his retirement in 2003, he dominated basketball and became a global phenomenon whose stardom transcended the game. Jordan was legendary for his competitiveness, work ethic, and high expectations of his teammates. Listen to learn the story of Michael Jordan, from his high school years to his rise to global stardom, and the qualities that helped him succeed.
Read More
Early humans traded goods to get what they needed, but bartering was not practical when one person did not want or need what the other had to offer. Eventually money was invented to make economic exchanges easier and more practical. Listen to hear how our money system evolved, what early currencies looked like, and why people must agree on the worth of currency for it to have value.
Read More
The Grand Canyon has amazed visitors and scientist alike since it was discovered. The debate over what created this geologic wonder has been reignited in recent years. Is the Grand Canyon 6 million years old or 70 million? Listen to learn more about this debate between two geologists who have very opposing viewpoints.
Read More
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the early 1800s, escaped as a young adult, and went on to become the most famous abolitionist of his time. A renowned author, speaker, and activist, Douglass also became an early master of what is now known as "public relations," or use of the media. Douglass purposefully used photography to depict himself as a dignified counterpoint to derogatory depictions of African-Americans. Listen to learn how Douglass’s use of photography furthered the abolitionist cause.
Read More
Events from the past often have lingering effects that last into the present day. This is especially true for redlining. Begun in the 1930s, redlining was the federal government’s practice of assigning a grade to urban areas to help banks decide where it was safe to invest. Time and time again, minority and immigrant communities got the lowest grades. As a result, investment in these areas stopped and, over time, those communities deteriorated. Listen to learn more about redlining and the consequences it had for generations of residents of minority communities.
Read More
Higher Education in the United States is largely independent from the government, and provides value in the form of knowledge, degrees, and increased earnings. College campuses are known for being at the forefront of progressivism and the fight for racial equality, but this wasn’t always the case. In the early days of the American colonies, academic institutions were closely involved in the development of slavery. Listen to hear how one history professor explored the complicated legacy of slavery in American higher education.
Read More
The phrase “no two snowflakes are alike” is actually scientifically accurate. Snow forms high in the atmosphere, and despite its uniform appearance, each snowflake is different based upon where and how it was formed. Although snowflakes are non-living, they grow and change from the time they are formed to the time they reach the ground. Listen to learn how snow is formed and why it exists in some places but not others.
Read More
The Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, measures the worth of all the goods and services produced in a country. Knowing the GDP helps countries monitor how strong or weak their economies are. When the GDP gets bigger, conventional wisdom says that the economy is healthy and growing, while a shrinking GDP means that something is wrong. The GDP provides a way to see the fluctuations in a nation’s economy over time. But the usefulness of the GDP is limited. Listen to this story to find out why.
Read More
In 12th century France, the Catholic Church began the Inquisition for the purpose of stamping out heresy. In later Middle Ages the Inquisition expanded in response to the Protestant Reformation and also expanded to other European countries and their empires in the Americas. This audio story draws parallels between the Inquisition of medieval times and the surveillance and bureaucracy of the present day. It also discusses similarities to methods used in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, at the United States’ detention camp. Listen to hear how the institutionalizing of the Inquisition hundreds of years ago is linked to persecution today.
Read More
This story explores an important economic question: When a kid loses a tooth, how much should the tooth fairy pay? That may sound like a joke, but the tooth fairy’s payoff provides an example of inflation—the amount the price of goods increases each year—and of the economic principle called “income elasticity of demand.” Listen to the story to find out what teeth are going for these days, and what economists have to say about it.
Read More
Storms and cold weather play an important role in Mary Shelley’s famous horror novel Frankenstein. Apparently, the bad weather in her story may reflect the weather at that time. When Shelley was writing the novel, the world was enduring a particularly cold and gray few years. Scholars hypothesize that the weather influenced Shelley to write about the weather for the novel. Listen to hear more about how true-life conditions affected this writer, and consider how climate change may influence future works of literature and art.
Read More
Time is something that every person on the planet thinks about every day. It is talked about like a commodity: “spend time” or “waste time” are phrases that are often used. But, what is time? Scientists have grappled with this subject for a long “time”! Listen to hear more about time and why the current system is used to keep track of time.
Read More
Writing college application essays can be stressful. Some companies are trying to help applicants through the process by analyzing essays of admitted students, gathering data, and offering targeted advice. But one college counselor cautions that sometimes, trying to follow these tips can lead students astray. Instead, she hopes that students will look to themselves for inspiration and write essays using their own voice. Listen to hear more about how students can stay true to themselves as they write college essays.
Read More
Language is complex, but children are natural language learners. Language itself is unique to humans, and many scientists want to know more about how humans are capable of learning language. Some theories suggest humans are born to be able to process and use language; however, a researcher studying language learning in children thinks differently. He has been studying the sounds, grammar, vocabulary as well as eye movements and brain activity in children, and he has made some discoveries. Listen to learn more about language research that helps to explain why we have language and how we learn it.
Read More
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prevented all immigration of Chinese laborers. Chinese immigrants were detained at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay at the turn of the 20th century because of the Exclusion Act. This audio story describes the Chinese poetry carved on the walls of a detention barracks by Angel Island detainees. Their poetry tells a story of humiliation and mistreatment of innocent Chinese people trying to start a new life or join loved ones already in the United States.
Read More
A United Nations report in 2014 shows that human activities are changing the planet. The scientists are more confident in their conclusions that humans are causing global warming. There are rising sea levels, higher temperatures and impacts on wildlife. This conversation with a public radio reporter looks at the long term trend in global temperatures and what humans can do to reverse the trend.
Read More
In Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, an all powerful Capitol controls and exploits the districts of Panem for resources. The inequality and concentration of power in Panem has struck a nerve for readers, reflecting on their lives and their governments. Heroine Katniss Everdeen has become a symbol of resistance adopted by political parties and protest movements across the globe. Why and how does this dystopian novel reflect the real world? Listen to learn more about the link between The Hunger Games and our world today.
Read More
Hurricanes are huge storms that can cause major damage and destruction. Scientists predict that hurricanes will gain in strength due to climate change. Since nothing can be done to stop hurricanes, scientists are working on methods to better predict hurricanes so that people can prepare well in advance. This audio story describes how climate change affects hurricanes. Listen to hear how hurricanes affect land and why predicting a hurricane is so challenging.
Read More
Lauren Tarshis’s I Survived series features thrilling books about kids who make the right decisions in the midst of chaos to survive historical events. In this audio story, Tarshis talks about creating realistic characters and how her readers influence the topics she chooses to write about. Listen to learn how the I Survived series can be helpful for students dealing with anxiety.
Read More
The play "Hedda Gabler" by Henrik Ibsen was written in 1891. It features a female protagonist who feels trapped and bored by her loveless marriage and the rules of Victorian society, and relieves her frustration through manipulating others. A play called "Heddatron," is a comedic reinterpretation of "Hedda Gabler." The producers of "Heddatron" updated the play for a 21st century audience by incorporating robots into the cast. As new forms of technology are showing up in unexpected places, the integration of robots in this play challenges our thinking about the role of technology in our culture and our society. Listen to this story to learn why the producers decided to bring robots into a century-old play, and what challenges they faced in bringing their reinterpretation to the stage.
Read More
The Tibetan Plateau is one of the highest and coldest places on Earth. Many of the world’s tallest mountains, including Mt. Everest, is on the Tibetan Plateau. For millions of years, animals living in this region have needed to adapt to extremely cold temperatures. When an ice age took over Europe and Asia about 2.5 million years ago, this adaptation may have given animals living on the plateau an evolutionary advantage. Listen to hear about the discovery of the woolly rhino on this plateau and the new theories resulting from the discovery.
Read More
In 1969, Lynn Girton fell in love with a woman for the first time ever, not even understanding what homosexuality was. Her adopted daughter Molly is also gay, and despite this commonality has had a very different experience of life. Listen to hear mother and daughter discuss their different experiences of gender and sexual identity.
Read More
In 2015, the United States resettled nearly 70,000 refugees as wars and political instability continue to drive people from their home countries. Resettlement isn’t easy for the person coming to a new country. One of those people, Barwaqo Mohamed was born and grew up in Somalia, but came to the U.S. as a political refugee in 2006. In this audio story, Barwaqo talks about her experience as an immigrant with a journalist who volunteered to tutor her in English for over four years. Barwaqo describes herself as a natural at learning languages and that helped her fit in. Listen to the interview to learn how that skill has served her since she came to the U.S.
Read More
The United States is a nation of immigrants. European immigrants in the late 1800s populated our nation and were granted citizenship upon entry. The immigration system has changed dramatically since, and America’s borders are no longer open to all. Hostility towards immigrants has led to a crackdown on illegal immigration in various states. Arizona’s Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act, commonly known as SB 1070, was passed in 2010 and became the strictest anti-immigration measure in recent history. Listen to learn how this law has impacted Arizona and its immigrants.
Read More
In the original Constitution, the founders laid out a process through which a president could be removed from power, known as impeachment. In this audio story, a history professor explains how impeachment works. She also gives a brief history of presidential impeachments, explaining some of the issues in each case. Finally, she sounds a warning about impeachment, namely that it is should not be used for political purposes but rather as a mechanism for holding a president accountable for job performance.
Read MoreListenwise uses cookies to provide the best experience possible. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Read our Privacy Policy