Exploring and capturing interesting government careers is at the heart of Kids.gov’s content marketing strategy. Original scripting, curating through our various publishing channels, and promoting become the lifecycle of every video that we create.
The topics of our videos range from health and archaeology to STEM fields. Over the course of the year, you can find the Kids.gov team at NASA, a wildlife refuge, a nutritionist’s kitchen, or even interviewing a White House chef. All of our videos aim to inspire kids to learn more about government careers and helps teachers with lesson planning.
After shooting and editing these career videos in partnership with other federal government agencies, they’re made available to the general public. But before they are, and in an aim to make these videos as widely available as possible, the team also makes sure that they’re 508 compliant.
What 508 compliance for video means
Our videos are hosted on our website, and we normally send our audience to the site to watch them instead of our YouTube channel and TeacherTube, but because YouTube is not fully accessible, we also host them on our website. When we promote the videos on social media and through emails, we normally send our audience directly to the site to watch them.
In order to meet accessibility standards, each of our videos include:
- Closed captioning and a transcript
- Audio descriptions of action or visuals
- An mp3 downloadable version and an accessible downloadable player
We know that creating accessible versions of our videos makes a big difference and is extremely important to the people we serve based on some of the feedback they've shared with us -- like this note we received this week from Karen Wolffee, a Ph.D. from Salus University.
"I appreciate your help - the accessible videos are a great help to the students with whom we are working - youth who are blind or have low vision. I shall make the young adults with whom I work aware of the videos and appreciate you sending me the link - that will make it easier for them."
Check out our latest video: “What Does a Brain Scientist Do?” and our other government career videos on our site or by subscribing to our YouTube channel.
Find more information on making 508 compliant videos on DigitalGov.gov.
About Kids.gov
Managed by USAGov, Kids.gov is the official kids' portal for the U.S. government. We link kids, parents and teachers to information and services on the web from government agencies, schools, and educational organizations, all geared to the learning level and interest of kids.
Kids.gov is organized into four audiences: Kids (Grades K-5), Teens (Grades 6-8), Teachers and Parents. Each audience tab is divided into educational subjects like Arts, Math, and History.
Victoria Wales is an Innovation Specialist on the USAGov Marketing and Outreach Team.
