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This site provides accurate information on the American Civil War. Using sources from the award winning Ken Burns documentary "The Civil War" which provide any social studies teacher with accurate information yo use in designing lesson plans. 

How might teachers use this site?

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is the world's premier university source for market-oriented ideas-bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. A university-based research center, the Mercatus Center advances knowledge about how markets work to improve people's lives by training graduate students, conducting research, and applying economics to offer solutions to society's most pressing problems. Our mission is to generate knowledge and understanding of the institutions that affect the freedom to prosper, and to find sustainable solutions that overcome the barriers preventing individuals from living free, prosperous, and peaceful lives. Founded in 1980, the Mercatus Center is located on George Mason University's Arlington campus.

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!!

Main page of the UNESCO World Heritage Center website.

I absolutely love the UNESCO World Heritage Center website because it offers thousands of ideas for out-of-class exploration of cultural sites. All you have to do is click on the World Heritage List and scroll to your country's list of locations. You can visit most of these sites free of charge and they offer tours and kid-friendly information on the site. This site could also be used as a way to formulate upper-level discussion about what culture is and who gets to decide what cultures (and what parts of a specific culture) are worth saving.

The National Constitution Center in Philidelphia has a website that has information for the general public and educators. It has lots of information that teachers could find useful in a classroom setting.

A list of lesson plans created by teachers covering all subject areas and grade levels. Put together by the Columbia Education Center.

The Center for Global Studies is based out of the University of Illinois. Their resources primarily come from the University of Illinois but they also have videos and research submitted from other places. Always check the source! I find most of the information to be useful when thinking about world history and global studies type courses.

How might you or another social studies teacher use it in a class?

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.

Another page with links to teaching resources and lesson plans.

I just took a glance at one of the lesson plans from the Carter Center and I love how thorough it is. Great resource!

From the website: History Matters is "a project of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning of the City University of New York and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Visible Knowledge Project. . . . Designed for high school and college teachers and students of U.S. history survey courses, this site serves as a gateway to web resources and offers unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents, and guides to analyzing historical evidence. We emphasize materials that focus on the lives of ordinary Americans and actively involve students in analyzing and interpreting evidence."

Well, it looks like a student in this group shared this in the past, but what a great website! I'll put up some more sticky notes. This website features a large number of primary source material of different media and is strong in its content. Beyond that, this site features information about the methods historians use (interesting to high school students, applicable to college students), a database of reviewed websites, lesson plans, syllabi, and teaching tips. A pretty comprehensive resource.

RegData is the first tool to allow for industry-specific quantification of federal regulation, permitting within-industry and between-industry analyses of the causes and effects of federal regulations. Mercatus Center George Mason University

Winterthur (in Delaware) is the former country estate of Henry Francis duPont. He was one of the first avid collectors of American fine and decorative arts and the museum (aside from being a beautiful place to visit) is now a leading center for scholarship in the field. The museum has created packets of primary-source materials that can be used in classrooms if a field trip is not possible.

A great website by the Southern Poverty Law Center that provides thoughtful ways to address all kinds of issues. There are useful history, geography and current issues lesson plans.

How might teachers use this site specifically?

A resource for World History curriculum created by the San Diego State University and National Center for History in the Schools.  It is a through and evolving website for teachers.

This website uses resources from current and returned Peace Corps Volunteers to create lesson plans to help teachers educate their students about the world. Most of the lesson plans center around stories written by Volunteers but there are some videos as well. Teachers can also request that a Volunteer visit their classroom to talk with their students.

A resource for study of the First Amendment. Offers a wealth of info on past and current first amendment issues.

This is a program started by the Southern Poverty Law Center that offers a website, a quarterly magazine and other resources for teachers. It informs on historic and current events related to social justice awareness.

Organizational information for the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Home page of the Newberry Library D'Arcy McNickle Center for American Indian History