PBS Online Helps Audiences Get On Target with Y2K

Posted on October 7, 1999

With less than three months to go before the millennial date change, leading Y2K experts speculate that the public will respond to the potential of Y2K-related shortages and outages in one of two ways: 1) panic, and adopt an "every man for himself" attitude, or 2) complacency, and do nothing because they assume that the Y2K 'crisis' will never materialize. A new website from PBS Online -- Getting on Target With Y2K, provides resources and information to support a third alternative: that people come together in homes, schools, neighborhoods and communities to begin a dialogue and develop "just in case" plans that provide local safety nets for potential social risks posed by the advent of the year 2000.

"Getting on Target With Y2K" provides: prudent personal and neighborhood preparedness tips, youth activities, information on public television and radio Y2K programming, weekly opinion polls and news and views. The site also features the Year 2000 Living History Project, a comprehensive service-learning program for high school and upper middle school students that reframes the Y2K computer crisis as a positive growth and community-service opportunity for young people.

"Giving teenagers this informed and proactive role to play is a way of reducing the likelihood that they will themselves suffer from stress even as they are helping to extend the safety net for the equally at-risk elderly and disabled populations," says Gordon Dveirin, Ed.D, developer of the concept and curriculum for the Year 2000 Living History Project.