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Breaking News is a current events news-reader designed in an intriguing way. You can type in whatever topic you want to read about - soccer, major news, refugees - and you're provided with a list of headlines to stories about it. Clicking on the headlines will take you to the story. But the real interesting part of the site is that if you click on a globe icon on the upper right of the page, you'll go to a world map showing you the location of the where the stories are originating. Clicking on the dots will also take you to the story.

Education: Grade(s): 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Cost $FREE! What was it like to be a Jew in Europe prior to World War II? How was your life different from non-Jews? What did you know about the regime in Nazi Germany and what happened to you as a result of its rule? What was it like to be sent away from your parents on the Kindertransport or to stay in your home country and be taken away to a concentration camp? What was life like in the camps? What did it mean to be liberated? For this very special program, take your study of World War II and the Holocaust to individuals who lived through them. Ask these questions and more as you interact with Holocaust survivors. Our focus in this program will not be exploring the historic details of World War II or the Holocaust, but it will be to provide students the rare and important opportunity to speak directly with those who lived during that time and survived to share their experiences with others. This program will come live from the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center in St. Louis. The program will also include information about resources available through the Center.

Rand McNally launched a free online tool for students and teachers to learn more about the presidential election process. "An accompanying online teacher resource center includes lesson plans based on the Common Core Standards making it easy to integrate the games and activities into the classroom.   Features of "Play the Election" Digital Learning Game * Interactive electoral map - Breaks down the Electoral College by state, details past election results, real-time polling data, election-related headlines, and more. * Digital Mini-Games - Students can choose from eleven different mini-games that reinforce key concepts of the election, delve deeper into the issues of influential and battleground states, and tie core civics curriculum to current events. * Standards-aligned lesson plans - Professionally-created lesson plans for educators that cover key aspects of the 2012 Election, the Electoral College, and major debates. * Student Access - Each student creates their own unique profile that allows them to save and edit their own electoral map, play and track their progress through the games, and see how their answers stack up against those of others in their class or the country. * Create Your Own Games - Teachers can create their own mini-games to reinforce key concepts or to teach new, related events. "Play the Election" was created in collaboration with ImpactGames and is powered by ImpactGames' Knight News Game award winning platform."

"Free Civics Resources Pearson is also offering free learning resources tied to the upcoming U.S. presidential election, including a continually updated "Election Series" blog with classroom activities and ideas, a calendar of events, profiles of the presidential hopefuls, and three mini-courses focused on key civics topics. Follow #ElectionSeries on Twitter to get the latest materials as they are released."

"Free Civics Resources Pearson is also offering free learning resources tied to the upcoming U.S. presidential election, including a continually updated "Election Series" blog with classroom activities and ideas, a calendar of events, profiles of the presidential hopefuls, and three mini-courses focused on key civics topics. Follow #ElectionSeries on Twitter to get the latest materials as they are released."

Objective:  In this unit students will be able to explore how geographic, economic, social, and political issues can impact the ideological and structural bond of the United States (past, present, future) with an emphasis on the Antebellum Period. Essential Questions: 1.  What were/are the impacts of slavery on our country (past, present, future)? 2.  How can good leadership preserve unity? 3.  What significant issues can cause a war between citizens of the same country? 4.  In what ways can conflict result in positive outcomes?

This would be a fabulous idea for a twist on the 'ole research project to incorporate an authentic purpose/audience. "To help your students who have a higher comprehension of a topic, submitting an article to the Simple English Wikipedia is an excellent extension activity. Entire classes could even participate, all researching an animal, a historical event, or just editing/lengthening existing articles."

An 85 page document that is a "road map" to one state's social studies curriculum. The 7th and 8th grade sections might make a good starting point for Arizona's standards, if they could bear to change what they have now.

"Mystery Skype is an educational game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions. It's suitable for all age groups and can be used to teach subjects like geography, history, languages, mathematics and science."

This is my favorite "find" from summer academy! It is like an on-line textbook with interactive links to images, videos, audio clips and primary sources.

See this site for a "reserach cycle" and instructions on how to build a unit