Inventing Tomorrow

The Inventing Tomorrow impact campaign organized a wide range of screenings that were central to its outreach and engagement strategy. Special screenings took place at major institutions and events, including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the National Science Teaching Association Conference, and the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Through these screenings, Inventing Tomorrow reached thousands of educators, students, and STEM professionals.

In addition to domestic screenings, the film was included in the U.S. Department of State’s American Film Showcase, which enabled international screenings and workshops in Colombia, Greece, Indonesia, and Nigeria. These events often included discussions and educational programming to foster cross-cultural dialogue around science and environmental challenges. 

The campaign also expanded access through virtual screenings and webinars during the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing the film to continue reaching students and educators globally:

• Premiered at Sundance in 2018
• Screened at 40 premier film festivals around the world
• Reached 2.5M viewers on PBS and pbs.org
• Distributed educational resources accompanying the film to 5,000 science teachers
• Screened at the Department of State’s American Film Showcase, which included panel discussions and educational activities

In the Classroom and Community

The educational outreach for Inventing Tomorrow was designed to make the film a practical learning tool that educators could integrate into classrooms and informal learning environments. A central component was the comprehensive screening guide, created in collaboration with Blueshift Education. This hands-on resource provided educators with structured discussion prompts, creative exercises, and activities to help students connect the film’s themes to their own lives.

The campaign also included a set of Next Generation Science Standards-aligned lesson plans built around the documentary's stories, each emphasizing the engineering design process, scientific inquiry, and real-world problem-solving. These resources were made freely accessible, enabling educators to incorporate the film into a wide range of subjects while fostering critical thinking, empathy, and collaborative learning.

The educational outreach campaign included short video modules to accompany a curricular package for primary and secondary schools. They accompanied HHMI BioInteractive’s “Understanding Global Change” interactive, which helps students understand how Earth’s systems are affected by human activities. The materials were rolled out nationally through a series of Teacher Town Hall events, in partnership with 20 local PBS stations and schools and districts. All the materials were made widely available online at no charge.

In January and June of 2021, the learning materials were tested with approximately 50 Baltimore teachers in professional development workshops. With the pilot program complete in Fall 2021, educators worked with Dr. Jessica Bean to integrate the WATER module into the Baltimore Watersheds' core Biology Curriculum for Baltimore City Public Schools.