• Jimmy Lai, one of Hong Kong's most successful businessmen who escaped Communist China as a boy

• Victoria Korley, a 12-year-old girl in Ghana who dreams of becoming a doctor

• Brad Morgan, an innovative Michigan farmer who transforms manure into money

• Eusebio Atau, a poor Peruvian farmer who lacks a title to the land his family has cultivated for generations

• Spaniel Adams, an animated version of American Founding Father Samuel Adams

These people, their stories, and many others like them, have been introduced to millions of students all over the U.S., indeed, throughout the world, by izzit.org, an Erie-based company founded by Bob Chitester.

In their quest to “edu-tain” students in grades K-12, the not-for-profit izzit.org provides U.S. K-12 teachers and homeschoolers with a free DVD each year they teach, asking only for feedback to improve their products in return. Some teaching units have been adapted for use in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Slovenia.

The DVDs are accompanied by full Teacher's Guides that include lesson plans, discussion questions, vocabulary words, worksheets, quizzes, and more. izzit.org also offers a daily current events program that comes with a choice of two articles, vocabulary words, and discussion questions. The questions skew toward higher-order questions as the goal is to encourage critical thinking and respectful debate among students.

The izzit.org creative team includes Emmy, Gabriel, and Peabody Award winners. Their filmmakers and animators have worked for Disney, Warner Brothers, National Geographic, The Discovery Channel, A&E, PBS, and ABC News, just to name a few. They travel the country and the globe in search of compelling human stories (even if those humans are sometimes animated cats and dogs!) of success and freedom.• Jimmy Lai, one of Hong Kong's most successful businessmen who escaped Communist China as a boy

• Victoria Korley, a 12-year-old girl in Ghana who dreams of becoming a doctor

• Brad Morgan, an innovative Michigan farmer who transforms manure into money

• Eusebio Atau, a poor Peruvian farmer who lacks a title to the land his family has cultivated for generations

• Spaniel Adams, an animated version of American Founding Father Samuel Adams

These people, their stories, and many others like them, have been introduced to millions of students all over the U.S., indeed, throughout the world, by izzit.org, an Erie-based company founded by Bob Chitester.

In their quest to “edu-tain” students in grades K-12, the not-for-profit izzit.org provides U.S. K-12 teachers and homeschoolers with a free DVD each year they teach, asking only for feedback to improve their products in return. Some teaching units have been adapted for use in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Slovenia.

The DVDs are accompanied by full Teacher's Guides that include lesson plans, discussion questions, vocabulary words, worksheets, quizzes, and more. izzit.org also offers a daily current events program that comes with a choice of two articles, vocabulary words, and discussion questions. The questions skew toward higher-order questions as the goal is to encourage critical thinking and respectful debate among students.

The izzit.org creative team includes Emmy, Gabriel, and Peabody Award winners. Their filmmakers and animators have worked for Disney, Warner Brothers, National Geographic, The Discovery Channel, A&E, PBS, and ABC News, just to name a few. They travel the country and the globe in search of compelling human stories (even if those humans are sometimes animated cats and dogs!) of success and freedom.