Welcome to the second installment of WTIU's Passport Picks blog series! Today, we are featuring programs focused on this amazing planet we call home. While Earth Day 2023 may be behind us, your WTIU PBS Passport member benefit provides programming to educate and empower all of us to make a difference, all year long. With PBS signature series like Nature and Nova, we learn about our environment, meet the changemakers affecting policy, and come to understand the challenges we face as a global community. Such programming inspires us to be better stewards of our own little piece of the planet. We hope it inspires you, too!
Scroll down to see eight Passport programs that encourage us all to make our world a better place—on Earth Day and every day!
The Letter: A Message for Our Earth
In 2015, Pope Francis wrote Laudato Si’, one of the most ambitious and revolutionary papal statements of all time; in it he confronts the looming calamity of human impact on the earth. The Letter explores the Pope’s urgent message while sharing personal stories from five individuals on their voyages of discovery to help solve the greatest globally defining issue of our time: climate change. Learn more about this historic call to action with your WTIU PBS Passport benefit.
Explore humanity’s relationship with nature and wildlife, as scientists and conservationists from all over the world examine ways we can restore our planet. This three-part documentary series asks whether newfound awareness of nature could bring about a new chapter in the human story. Journey with your WTIU PBS Passport benefit and discover how a different understanding of the planet’s ecosystems is helping to restore environments once thought lost.
Visit six of our planet's most vulnerable ecosystems and meet the truly inspiring people working to save them. Join conservationist Dr. M. Sanjayan as well as the scientists and local experts fighting to safeguard their communities and wildlife; listen as they share stories that deepen our understanding of these habitats and introduce new potential solutions to combat the effects of the climate crisis. Learn more from these vital change-makers today with your WTIU PBS Passport member benefit!
Experience the extraordinary animals, epic landscapes, and remarkable people who live alongside three iconic rivers - the Amazon, the Nile, and the Mississippi in Season One of this landmark series. Continue your journey in Season Two with explorations of the Zambezi, the Danube, and the Yukon. Each episode features awe-inspiring photography of these breathtaking landscapes; see them all with your WTIU PBS Passport member benefit!
Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World
Travel with the world’s best-known climate activist as she takes her fight to a global stage. With unique access, this three-part series follows teenager Greta Thunberg over an extraordinary year as she embarks on a mission to ensure world leaders work to limit global warming. Take advantage of your WTIU PBS Passport benefit to journey with Greta from Canada to California and beyond.
Cameras in space tell stories of life on our planet from a brand-new perspective, revealing its ever-changing movements, colors, and patterns. Follow an elephant family struggling through a drought and marvel as thousands of Shaolin Kung-Fu students perform in perfect synchronicity. Behold Earth as you’ve never been seen it before with your WTIU PBS Passport member benefit!
Head into the unknown with naturalist Steve Backshall as he journeys to the world’s last unexplored places, encountering extraordinary wildlife and meeting remarkable people along the way. Backshall is on a mission to discover fresh insights that could help secure a viable future for the world’s wildlife; on this rapidly changing planet, the stakes have never been higher. Tune in with your WTIU PBS Passport member benefit and shine a light on places never seen by human eyes until now.
Sir David Attenborough travels the globe to reveal the secret lives of plants. Using pioneering camera techniques, the series takes viewers on a magical journey inside the hidden world of plants, on which all animals—including humans—are dependent. Dive into the extraordinary world of plants with your WTIU PBS Passport benefit!