Breaking Major League Baseball’s Color Barrier

The 75th Anniversary of Jackie Robinson | By Shirelle Phelps| On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s long-standing color barrier when he debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Since 2004, Major League Baseball (MLB) has celebrated this historic date annually. One way the MLB honors Robinson is by having all Major League players and on-field … Read more

Women’s History Month 2022: Wore Pants

| By Carol  Brennan | Welcome to another week in which we highlight a few of the thousands of intriguing biographical essays to be found in Gale In Context: Biography, an immensely rich and comprehensive resource for learners of (nearly) all ages. This week’s category of women who broke a few rules/talked back/failed to conform/cleared … Read more

Celebrating Black History Month 2022

| By Carol Brennan | February is Black History Month, and one of Gale In Context: Biography’s family of reference titles, Contemporary Black Biography, has been delivering in-depth profiles of global leaders in politics, the arts, sports, and other fields of achievement for nearly 30 years. An incomparable resource for students, teachers, and all lifelong … Read more

Updated DISCovering Authors Content Added to Gale In Context: High School

| By Jason Everett | The K12 Gale In Context team has added enhancements to customer-favorite resources in Gale In Context: High School. We’ve updated 73 biographies and plot summaries from some of the most popular and highly searched literature content in Gale’s DISCovering Authors—including new Critical Thinking Questions and sidebars. Headings and subheadings have … Read more

The Latest Biographies, Now Available Online

| By Tracey Matthews | Are you wondering where your favorite print biographical titles are? Popular core titles like Contemporary Black Biography, Encyclopedia of World Biography, and Newsmakers are still around in an online format. You can find this content under the titles Contemporary Black Biography Online, Encyclopedia of World Biography Online, and Newsmakers Online. … Read more

Researching Dr. Bernard Lafayette Through Gale Resources

| By Traci Cothran | On Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day this past week, I was privileged to hear Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Jr. speak at a church in downtown Detroit about the civil rights era and his last days working with MLK.  Lafayette is a long-term member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee … Read more

Giving Thanks for National Teachers’ Day

| By Debra Kirby |

National Teachers’ Day, which is observed in the United States on the first Tuesday of the first full week in May, is a great time to reflect on all the ways teachers have enriched our lives. Engaged teachers go beyond teaching their students the subject matter related to their classes—they also teach such skills as critical thinking, communication, organization, teamwork, and—in some cases—act as role models in ways that benefit their students into adulthood.

I was very fortunate to have just such a teacher: Mrs. Erma Colding, the science teacher at Harms Elementary in Detroit. Her class was the favorite of many students, and not just because it was filled with plants and animals. She was kind, engaging, encouraging, passionate about learning, and made science fun! Most of this I recognized at the time, but it was many years before I realized she had also been a role model for grace, dignity, and courage. I kept in touch with Mrs. Colding throughout my life, but only learned after her death that she was also a civil rights activist and a recipient of the prestigious NAACP Freedom and Justice Award.

Read moreGiving Thanks for National Teachers’ Day

Kids InfoBits Product Update week of 2/22/2016

Posted on February 24, 2016 You’ll see a few new updates and features added to Kids InfoBits starting March 9th. Here is what you’ll find: Are your students struggling with the meaning or definition of words in articles? Kids InfoBits now has easy access to the Merriam Webster Elementary Dictionary within the product. To assist students … Read more

Content Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/16/2015)

Posted on October 15, 2015

New content has been added and existing content updated in a number of Gale’s In Context products.

Global Issues In Context

  • A new portal page has been added featuring the South Sudan Civil War.
  • Over 25 portal pages have been updated including Dementia, Gun Control, Nobel Prize, Obama Administration: Foreign Policy, Political Corruption, Russia-Ukraine Conflict, Same-sex Marriage, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Read moreContent Updates for Gale’s In Context (week ending 10/16/2015)

The Future is Now in Biography in Context

By Traci J. Cothran

“Roads?  Where we’re going we don’t need roads!” – Doc Brown

It’s hard to believe the first Back to the Future movie – starring Michael J. Fox – was released thirty years ago – 30 YEARS AGO!  It may also surprise you to note that the “future” date visited via the time-traveling DeLorean in the movie is October 21, 2015 … which puts us officially in The Future.

Our editors on Biography in Context uncovered this fast fact recently, and currently feature Michael J. Fox (a.k.a. Marty McFly or Calvin) on the home page. We recently launched a new hotspotter feature in Biography in Context  allowing users to hover on the pulsing circles on the picture to explore more facts about the subject (in this case, Parkinson’s Disease).

Read moreThe Future is Now in Biography in Context