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The Library of Congress: American Memory is an excellent source for a variety of resources, including images, video, and audio recordings. The resources are free, but be sure to check out its copyright notice at http://www.loc.gov/homepage/legal.html. This website would be useful in an 11th grade U.S. History class. While the site is a little hard to navigate at first because of the many resources available, it is an excellent way to incorporate Common Core standards with the many high quality primary resources.

This resource is for video usage. All of the videos are for the public domain. The resources are free of use. The videos must not be utilized to imply National Park endorsement of a service, product, organization or individual with permission of the National Park Service. You are free to use these videos without a release from the National Park Service. Most of the videos are downloadable or zip compressed Quick TimeH.264 movie clips. The clips can be video editing applications, websites, and projects. This is a great resource for fourth and fifth grade social studies when teaching about the Civil War and Revolutionary War. It's great to assist in learning about monuments, battlefields and historical sites through video.

Contents of this site: This site contains images of influenza, natural disasters, environmental health, bioterrorism, electron micro-graphic imagery, everyday activities, health behaviors, public health in action. The websites recommend that the site is good for those studying in the primary, secondary, or graduate levels. However, there is a "WARNING: This library includes subject matter that may be unsuitable for children. Viewing discretion is advised." This site would be ideal for science, health, social studies, language arts (research and informational writing) with regard to any of the topics listed above. Copyright and Protection: The site states with regard to copyright that most of the pictures are copyright free, but you need to double check. Below is a question answered from the websites FAQ that will help clarify the copyright regulations of the images in this website. "What regulations govern the use of images in the PHIL? Answer: Images are either "Public Domain" (free use) or "Copyright Protected" (restricted, obtain permission before use) Most of the images in the collection are in the public domain and are thus free of any copyright restrictions. If you look directly beneath the image you will see a fair use statement that tells you if the image is public domain or copyright protected. Permission is not required for public domain images, but we do ask that you credit the original institution and contributor, when known, whenever the image is used in any publicly distributed media. If the image is copyright protected, you will have to contact the content provider to obtain usage permission. PHIL does not have the authority to grant usage for any copyrighted images in the library. If you have difficulty contacting a content provider, we may be able to help, but we cannot act on their behalf."

This website contains collections of images from many different government agencies. For example, the National Parks Service, NASA, the U.S. Mint, branches of the Military, and many, many more. The photos could be very useful in Science, Social Studies, and probably other classes as well. From just some quick research, it looks like the collections of images might best be suited for middle and high school students. The website states that some of the images may be used without permission or fee but the user should read the disclaimers to make sure of the copyright status.

This website is a government site, so it is a public domain and provides all resources including photos, videos, animations and podcasts for free to the public. The acronym USGS stands for United States Geological Survey, which means the photos and resources on this site pertain to elements of the geologic structure in the U.S. This site would be useful for all audiences of school age in grades 4-12. I chose that range because with the real-life depictions of our country's geography, it could easily bore and audience that was any younger. They are excellent quality resources and precise photography at our disposal for nothing out of pocket.

This website provides thousands of resources for educators. This is a sight created by the federal government to promote educational excellence. What ever the idea, topic, or lesson plan may be about, I am sure you will find the perfect resource you can use.

Bonanza! I didn't realize this, but most of NASA's images are generally not copyrighted and in the public domain, which means they can be used freely. (It is not ok to use the NASA logo.) This site contains links to several different resources including photos, sounds, film clips, etc. These could be most useful in a science class studying anything space-related, or maybe in a creative writing/digital storytelling project.

This site has pictures, information, and training material. This site is more suited for high school students as this is health information, and all of the pictures may not be appropriate for younger children.

A massive collection of digital reproductions of famous artworks, renderings of historical decorative objects, and more. Similar to the Getty's Open Content Program or Google Art Project, the National Gallery of Art's NGA Images site, "is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download," 37,000 open access images, many of which are featured at incredibly high resolution. Users can browse collections or perform an advanced search. NGA goes on to explain that it, "implements an open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are now available free of charge for any use, commercial or non-commercial. Users do not need to contact the Gallery for authorization to use these images," but are asked to include the following credit when using the aforementioned images: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Digital Library provides a collection of images, historical artifacts, audio clips, publications, and videos. Unless marked for private use, most of the collection is in the public domain. Instead of providing artifacts entirely based on the variety of fish and wildlife in the U.S., the website mainly focuses on artifacts on the services provided by the department. The artifacts that are based on the fish and wildlife would make excellent items to include in science classes of all ages. The artifacts based on the services provided would be better suited for high school social studies classes or any type of community involvement subject. The collection is huge, with a lot of information that is too "specialized" (documents outlining conservation plans of specific complexes), users of the site should use the search function over the browse function.

The Johnson Space Center digital image collection provides over 9,000 press release images from space programs ranging from Mercury to the STS-79 Shuttle mission. Unlike the NASA image gallery, the images provided are more historical in value. Unless stated otherwise, NASA does not "license" these images, but they do provide a list of guidelines of their use. Since these images have historical value, they may be best used in high school social studies, science, and history courses. One main issue with the images is their size. Each image is 640x480 pixels, making them well-suited for web, but not ideal for print.

The United States Department of Agriculture image gallery provides public domain, high-quality images of animals, crops, food, field research, plants, and more. These images are generic in nature; they are more like stock photo images. This gallery is great for teaching young children about the different occupations in agriculture, the different animals on found on the farm, or the different type of crops we grow. Due to the simplicity of the photos, they would not be as effective with student past 5th grade. Whenever you go to download an image, there is a form asking how you plan to use it. This form is optional; you can download the image without using it.

The Library of Congress contains a host of collections that can be explored. One Diigo posting referenced the American Memory collection, there are quite a few more. Just a small sample of the prints and photograph collection include Architecture, Design & Engineering Drawings, Ansel Adams Photographs of Japanese-American Interment in Manzanar, and Civil War Glass Negatives. The site is a bit overwhelming and teachers may need to narrow the focus for the students. An elementary and some middle school students would require specific collections presented to them if they were found useful for these age brackets. For instance, a search for trains pulls up information on how the screwdriver was used to make small toy trains. It would require the younger student to know how to narrow the search of the 4000+ pages on trains. This website would be a best fit for history. There are uses for language arts teachers from a historical perspective as well such as propaganda

National Marine Sanctuaries Media Library contains photographs of marine life. The content of this website would best be suited for High School and Jr. High School science classes. One area of interest on the website contains images of the human impact on marine life which could be useful for an Environmental Science class educating students on the effects of humans on our environment. The collection found on this website contains still images and some videos. The website lists that permission is granted to "any and all users (public domain)" for "unlimited uses." The images also include descriptions of the photos to help the user better understand the purpose of the photo.

NASA's photojournal is a copy-right friendly website that allows students and teachers to view images of each planet and the universe, as well as spacecraft and technology. Also included in this site are animations of happenings in space. This website would be ideal for science instruction on space and could be used for all grades. Not only are the images appealing, the information tagged with each image is very informative.

I will definitely use this website, as well as my students, to create presentations for our space unit.

Find historical maps, geographical maps, cartographic maps, maps of battles, cities, town... This is a very good resource for a social studies teacher. It contains over 4.5 million items. This website may also be good for science teachers who are studying conservation or the travels of an explorer like Darwin. History teachers who study battles during war can find American Revolution, Civil War, WWII battle and campaign maps. Any lesson that requires a map, this is the place to go to first.