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"The United Nations Cyberschoolbus was created in 1996 as the online education component of the Global Teaching and Learning Project, whose mission is to promote education about international issues and the United Nations. The Global Teaching and Learning Project produces high quality teaching materials and activities designed for educational use (at primary, intermediate and secondary school levels) and for training teachers. The vision of this Project is to provide exceptional educational resources (both online and in print) to students growing up in a world undergoing increased globalization." \n\n "Within the Cyberschoolbus site there are a number of activities and projects that teach students about global issues in an interactive, engaging and fun way."

A Global Peace Studies Online Curriculum created by AU alum and adjunct Daryn Cambridge. Contains links to documents, lesson plan ideas, activities and resources. A great beginner's guide to peace education

A Global Peace Studies Online Curriculum created by AU alum and adjunct Daryn Cambridge. Contains links to documents, lesson plan ideas, activities and resources. A great beginner's guide to peace education AND offers links to news articles and a Peace Educators discussion site!

This site was designed to provide resources for teaching landmark supreme court cases. It is orgnanized by cases or concepts. One can also find a variety of applicable activities for the classroom.

This website highlights landmark Supreme Court cases and includes short activities that can be used by teachers to help their students understand them.

This site provides history teachers with information for helping with their classes. This part of the site includes lesson plans with this one specifically on "Watergate and the Constitution." 

This is a lesson I used in order to teach students how perception often determines how maps are made. This activity is especially good for students that struggle with reading/writing since there isn't much involved with the activity.

This website is a great reference page for finding resources based on historical periods.

Smithsonian's History Explorer provides a multitute of resources for teachers including lessons, activities, interactive activities, examples of artifacts, and professional development opportunities for educators. One can easily search for desired resources by selecting the grade level, type of resource desired, and the time period. A variety of American History related subjects are displayed and from that list, one can select the desired resource.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute created this site on letters written during war. You can view copies of original letters written by soldiers, generals, presidents, and family members during conflicts from the Revolution to the Persian Gulf War. But wait, there's more: actors read the letters aloud while you read along. They have organized the letters by five different themes: Enlisting, Comforts of Home, Love, Combat, and The End of War. Each theme includes letters from all different eras of US history.

BrainPOP is an interactive instructional tool that uses animated characters, Tim & Moby to introduce and illustrate content material for social studies, math, science, English, arts, health and technology. The interactive resources include quizzes, movies, timelines, and activity pages. Other resources include lesson plans, classroom tools, curriculum calendars, research and much more. Some of what they offer is free. Unfortunately, there is an annual fee for most of their material. My practicum school uses this program extensively. The students really like using this program and actively engage in the material. At the moment, BrainPOP is featuring a segment on "American Indians" and "Digital Citizenship." If you go to this location, you will find a free movie on the civil war. http://www.brainpop.com/socialstudies/freemovies/civilwar/

The Center for Civic Education is website designed to educate students in citizenry, the constitution and democratic constitutionalism. The Center offers a full curriculum at all three learning levels: elementary, middle school and high school. Their materials include full lesson plans and textbooks that support their program. The lesson plans include critical thinking exercises, vocabulary lists, problem solving activities and cooperative learning activities. The program is designed so that teachers can use it to supplement an existing curriculum or as the foundation of their curriculum. My cooperating teacher is going to use parts of the program to supplement her curriculum. The lessons focus on life in American, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, political traditions and institutions, different levels of government (local, state and federal), constitutionalism and the rights and responsibilities of citizens. The center also offers professional development seminars that are often free of charge to DC teachers. For example, on October 27th, there is a free seminar for DC teachers on "We the People Through Primary Sources and Documents" being held at the National Archives….they even provide a free lunch! Here is the direct link to the professional development page: http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=state_programs&&p=101&&st=DC.

Haha, I love this site! I posted on it the week before last. I reeeeeeaally want to get a job working for them! :-)

Laura, that is funny....we seem to like the same sites. It is an awesome sight...and the program is awesome too. Do you have a set of the books? Good luck...I hope that works out for you!!

This lesson plan from the New York Times web site utilizes the newspaper to teach high school students about First Amendment rights and the daily impact of those rights on their lives.

This lesson plan from the New York Times web site has students locate, summarize and reflect on articles in the newspaper related to First Amendment rights as well as articles illustrating the lack of such rights in other countries.

This curriculum provides various lesson plans, activities, graphic organizers, resources, and a video to have students connect world events to their own lives and others in their community, in relation to understanding global terrorism.

So this may be my favorite organization ever. They have an international branch, a branch in DC and a branch in California. They have a daily civics quiz on the the website and a daily 60 second civics podcast . . . I'm in <3.

I'm just overwhelmed. I want to work at this organization . . . so many incredible incredible programs, teacher trainings, professional developments, etc. Lynn Cohen worked with Civitas in Bosnia.

From the site: "Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) uses properties listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects. TwHP has created a variety of products and activities that help teachers bring historic places into the classroom." Including lesson plans and tips!

Lesson Plans: The Lesson Plans link has SO MANY lesson plans. They are designed at a middle school level but can easily be adapted (says them). The lesson plans are organized by Location/State; Theme; Time period; and Skill - meaning that you can click on any one of those subdivisions and search them that way. Very exciting! You should definitely check these out. Even if you're not in that state, they still have pictures, mapping materials, and activity ideas that you can use to incorporate geography into historic concepts. For example, the Battle of Bunker Hill lesson contains two maps (of Boston today and in 1775) and inquiry questions for these, a section of text (looks like a high school level to me) and inquiry questions for that AND three images (one a sketch of an encampment and two pictures) and inquiry questions for those. These might make fantastic "Do Now"s for the beginning of the lesson even if you didn't use any of the rest of the sites info. So neat!

Also they have lots of tips for how you can incorporate place into your lessons. AND! you can submit your own lessons. They take you through the TwHP lesson creation process and you can submit them.

I will be teaching the Era of the Constitution this upcoming Wednesday. When I was in US history in high school we did a cool simulation where we played the roles of the convention's members and I thought this was a pretty good lesson plan for doing such an activity.

The National Archives and Records Administration has launched a new websites for teachers that includes thousands of primary source documents that are ready to use in classroom settings.

I talked to the education specialists at NARA this summer and they showed me how to use DocsTeach and it is AMAZING. Also, they have the most wonderful field trip opportunity. They have a simulation where the students become archivists and they go through the research process. I don't think there is anything else like it in the entire country. If you want to teach the research process and historical thinking, you need to book a trip ASAP!

National Archives Documents and Activities for teaching History

Lesson plans and activities about art.

These interactive state maps are perfect for students working on state projects or reports. Each map features clickable points where kids can learn about cities, landmarks, landforms, rivers, mountains and much more. In addition, individual state pages feature numerous activities, state histories, printables, and videos.

PBS Teachers Thematic Teaching Activity Ideas

Site provides activities on history and culture, straight from the Smithsonian Institute. Primarily geared toward elementary students, the Institute provides lesson plans from art to war to language.

What makes the resources "excellent"?