Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer

In this curated video gallery, students will explore seven clips from the PBS series Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer to analyze the history and legacy of life-saving medical discoveries that have doubled human life expectancy in the last 100 years. Extra Life examines the bigger picture of epidemiology and sparks a global conversation about how we’ve learned to save lives throughout history. The series is sensitive to the cultural blind spots that have influenced our approach to health and examines inequalities in access to health world-wide.

Students will explore the seven clips from this series, or select clips as time allows. Support materials include discussion questions and extension activities for the series as a whole and for each clip individually. Students have the opportunity to engage deeply with each video clip through warm up questions, comprehension questions, discussion questions, and culminating/extension activities.

For additional curricular resources connected to this project, visit The Pulitzer Center.

Learning Objectives: Students will…..

• Reflect on health habits, consider their engagement with news about global public health, and make predictions about life expectancy as part of a warm up activity.
• Review the term life expectancy, which means the average number of years a person can expect to live, and evaluate how the following have led to the doubling of life expectancy: Vaccines, Data, Drugs, and Human behavior.
• Connect past global health challenges and innovations with our contemporary fight against COVID-19, and explore how international cooperation has been historically instrumental in fighting global epidemics.