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Through audio files, this website is a collection of speeches in United States History from various political figures and activists . These sources give a glimpse into events and viewpoints in our history such as the Civil Rights Movement or the Challenger's disastrous flight. Middle School students will be able to listen to what was really said by that individual and what it meant for that time period.

American Rhetoric allows students to take a step into the past and feel as though they are living in a particular time period. I can imagine a class closing their eyes and listening to the powerful words of JFK in his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, or the determination in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Transcripts of each speech are also available on the site, as well as photos that help the students visualize the speaker and the time period. Extremely motivating!

5th graders learn about explorers in social studies and we do a research unit in media.  This site is very cool because it has actual documents that contain personal accounts by American explorers, Indians, missionaries, traders and settlers.  I love reading the actual words from these famous pioneers from long ago.  I think it gives kids something "real" to relate to when studying history.

shmoop claims to "speak student."  I think this is a great site for kids who are trying to understand their topic of choice.  There are some primary source links embedded within the text of each subject.  The high interest topics of study makes this site usable for students doing research.

When students are asked to research the Civil War, this website provides a variety of documents that are interesting and helpful to students.  I enjoyed looking at documents that were personal stories from the war.  I think students will also like reading about the Civil War from multiple perspectives.

There several ways to search the FBI-by category, keyword, site map, and A-Z index. Most of the primary resources are documents from the FBI's files on a variety of people, from Lady Bird Johnson to Michael Jackson. Occasionally, there are things other than documents, like video of 9/11 attack. This site is mainly for grades 6-12 for American history.

Not only does this site have primary sources in text, audio, video, and images, but also, silent movies, archived web pages, historical software, and animation/cartoons. Grades 1-12 could easily find interesting primary sources for their projects. Students will enjoy an occasional old cartoon, like Why We Have Elections, that teaches about the election process, and can be taught about primary sources, too.

This search page can help you find all of the Smithsonian Institution's primary sources for your topic. Whether your topic is a culture, place or person, this search page with pull up photos, documents, paintings, and photographs of objects, such as jewelry, flags, musical instruments, tools, clothing, etc. Easy enough for even 3rd graders to use to find primary sources for research on historical sites, cultures, like Native Americans, & famous people.

The main focus of this site is the secondary sources of the entire journals, manuscripts, and diaries of all the members of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. The site also contains a large image collection of primary sources in the form of images from parts of the journals, drawings made in the documents, maps. The images of people and places are not primary sources and all fro LOC & Nat. Archive.

This excellent site links the searcher to primary documents, images, etc. from libraries, archives, schools, and governments all over Europe, but everything is in English, usually with the native language included. The toolbox on the left helps, particularly special pages. This site is probably best used for researching cultures, history, and geography.

The Institute for Holocaust Education site provides educational resources, workshops, survivor testimony for both students and educators of all ages and all levels of learning. The site is designed to ensure appropriate, accurate, and authentic lessons/materials are provided to the students so they are able to understand the political, social, and intellectual conditions that led to the Holocaust while recognizing stereotypes, prejudice and racism. The site also provides its users with additional references (i.e.) books, web links, exhibits, and a website dedicated to the Nebraska Holocaust Memorial.

The British Museum provides a section specifically designed for children to help explore countries of the world and showcase actual museum artifacts that go with those continents.  The Museum Explorer shows a map from which users can highlight a country or region of the world and topic for that country to see artifacts from the museum and a brief explanation.  Students can choose the topics: birds and beasts, tools and technology, death, gods and spirits, daily life, leaders and rulers, dress and ornament, and warfare.   6th graders learning about the continent of Africa could access Museum Explorer, select leaders and rulers and discover that African leaders mainly consisted of elders and chiefs of tribes, but Egypt made leadership in Africa well known.  There are five artifacts shown on the African Leaders and Rulers page.  The Story of King Solomon and Queen Sheba is a Ethiopian painting from AD 1971 that shows the reign of the king and queen.  I can see students investing their time in this site to see actual artifacts from the specified regions.

This section of America's Story helps learners gain a brief insight into each state.  There is a summary of how the state entered statehood, as well as some key information.  The image that appears when a state is clicked on is the state flag, state capital, state flower, and another image associated with the state.  There are also links to other stories about the state at the bottom and on the side of the page.  Students begin learning about their own state in 4th grade and more of the country in 5th grade.  This site provides a good overview of the state with primary source images and documents.

America's Story provides a great overview of American History in a simplified, easy-to-read manner.  The site is divided into five sections for easy navigation and to help users be able to identify what they need.  Students could use the See, Hear, and Sing section to understand the history of cartoons, children's songs, and various voice recordings.  The audio clips that are provided are directly from the Library of Congress and provide authentic learning experiences for students in second grade through 5th grade.

This site looks to be a great gathering place where one can locate primary source information. In addition, it has links to audio, video, documents and lesson plans. "AwesomeStories is about primary sources. The stories existas a way to place original materials in context and to hold those links together in an interesting, cohesive way (thereby encouraging people to look at them). It is a totally different kind of web site in that its purpose is to place primary sources at the forefront - not the opinions of a writer. Its objective is to take the site's users to places where those primary sources are located." http://www.awesomestories.com/

This section of America's Story focuses on the Amazing Americans who have helped shape American History.  The people are categorized by their profession or what made them famous.  The biographical information for each person provides an great summary of why they were important, links to more stories, photos, and even a timeline of their life in relation to what was happening in America.  Students begin to learn about specific people in our nation's history in 3rd and 4th grade.  This site would lend itself to exploring more information about these people from the trusted source of the Library of Congress.

The United States Census Bureau provides population, economic, and geographic resources. This site would benefit students and educators in social studies, mathematics, economics, and geography. Interesting features include comparisons among resources and the U.S./World population clocks. There are various methods of accessing information (by state, region, use of data tools, etc.).

This is an interactive site that makes it easy to look up certain events, or people, in history and immediately find other related sources.

3rd graders in the Millard School District are required to learn about the Omaha Indians.  This site shows photographs, artifacts, and gives first hand information about the local tribe.

This site has over 1.8 million searchable images collected from archives, libraries, galleries, and museums in Australia and overseas. This site would be good for social studies, animal, geography, the arts, and countries research. For example, one of the things found when searching "Nebraska" was a picture postcard from 1908 with a battleship and a short history of the USS Nebraska.

National History Day offers primary sources for world history. Students and educators from 5-12 grade can use this site to find information on many regions around the world. Teachers can use the Classroom Connection section to find information that fits into their standards, a repository can be used to find primary resources for specific regions and time periods.