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This website is provided by PBS for teachers to use to help with different classroom applications. It offers teachers the ability get classroom resources, start discussion boards with other educators, and professional development tools. 

"Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities Teaching History Through Art Date: Saturday, October 16, 2010 Time: 10:00a.m.-1:00p.m. Cost: $10 (more information) Learn how to use artworks as primary sources to teach American history and critical thinking. This workshop brings together the highlights of the collection used in American Art's history tours, including Young America, Lure of the West, and A House Divided. Come and get activity ideas to use in preparation for a tour or as stand-alone classroom lessons. This workshop will be offered again on February 12, 2011 and is available, by request, for groups of fifteen or more teachers. E-mail AmericanArtEducation@si.edu for more information."

I can't make this event, but it could be really interesting!

The UN's Millennium Goals as they have constructed them for kids. It's still a ton of information and not in the easiest or most engaging format but it might be a great place for students to get started examining world issues like Hunger, HIV/AIDS or Infant Mortality and what they can do.

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!!

FREE is a website pool of teaching and learning resources from various branches of the federal government. From the website: "More than 1,500 federally supported teaching and learning resources are included from dozens of federal agencies. New sites are added regularly. . . . FREE is maintained by Peter Kickbush and Kirk Winters, Office of Communications and Outreach, with support from the Development Services Team in the Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Education."

This site is amazing, I was just playing around with it and I am definitely using some of the resources for my unit. :)

Worldology.com was conceived with the objective of making history and geopolitics (the relationship and dynamic between geography and politics) more easily digestible and understandable. As one who has long been interested in this topic, I have been intrigued by the possibility of more imaginative ways to bring this field of understanding to life. This led to the idea of graphical and interactive maps to enable myself and others to more acutely visualize the evolution of nations and cultures. As the creator of Worldology.com, I have found that maps have been very useful in simplifying and deepening my understanding of historical events, along with long-standing and on-going dynamics between various nations. However, most published content about important events throughout history are not accompanied by an event-specific map. With this in mind, I envisioned an application that provided an event-specific map for key developments throughout history, along with an expanded geographical view, in order to comprehend the region-wide context. For interactivity, mouseovers were imbedded so the visitor could access more detailed information of key events, along with added graphics for further illumination. Then, you can toggle back and forth between time frames, to gain a feel of the evolution of the geopolitical landscape over time. For example, in the Europe History Interactive Map, you can click back and forth through major time periods, gaining an overview of how tribes, kingdoms, empires and nation-states fluctuated throughout time. During the Middle Ages for instance, you can simultaneously see how the Frankish Empire (Western/Central Europe), Byzantine Empire (Greece) and Rus Principalities (Russia) evolved concurrently with one another. Then, you can mouseover the information buttons to learn more. You can even switch to the "Show Borders" view in order to see modern European borders overlayed upon long-ago political entities. I hope to eventually cover the entire

The Newseum offers a variety of resources for teachers including detailed lesson plans with worksheets, free tours for DC studetns and their chaperone, professional development opportunities for techers and educational classes for students and on topics including the First Amendment, Berlin Wall, Woodstock, and headlines of history. The lesson plans are thorough and easisly adapted. I am going to adapt one of their lesson on the First Ammendment called "You Can't Say That?"

This section of the National Council for the Social Studies website appears to be a little bit dated, but the materials that are presented seem to be a useful resource. It must be difficult for social studies teachers to tackle the tough subjects of current global conflict, terrorism, Afghanistan, Iraq, and September 11, 2001. I am sure many school districts are still using textbooks that were printed prior to 2001 or 2002, and just don't cover this relevant information. Some of the items listed on this page are basic and practical (maps, etc.) and others are a bit more engaging and dynamic, aiming to help students develop an emotional connection to the subject matter.

How might teachers use what's there, even if it is dated?

Global issues classes in high schools will probably cover this subject matter; mine did in-depth. Some of the resources could be useful as hand outs, especially the maps. As an example, maybe over the course of a week or so of instruction, a teacher using this site as a resource could put together a lesson that stretches over the 5 class meetings, chronologically examining the roots of the second War in Iraq, stemming from the Persian-Gulf war, through Clinton's involvement, to 9/11, terrorism, Al-Qaeda being used as a pretext for war, concluding with an examination of the anti-war movement and the short course of the "traditional" war against the Iraqi military. The following week could move in to the insurgency or another related topic. Basically, I see this website as a place where a teacher looking to present the outlined events can find some extra resources that won't be in most textbooks.

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.

Washington Post Magazine: D.C. 1791 to Today - Working with the Washington Post and washingtonpost.com, a team of students at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill developed a series of images to digitally illustrate the myriad changes to the architecture and landscape of Washington, D.C. since the city's inception in 1791. Working from maps, plans, drawings, and photographs, the UNC students have represented the physical history of Washington in a set of time slices, showing side-by-side views of familiar landscapes, then and now, and modeling significant changes to important buildings and monuments.">

Wow- this a perfect map for my 5th grade class on the history of DC! Thanks Julian- JB

GREAT introduction to water as a scarce resource.

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.

This is an interesting site that shares reasons why social studies is important and how a person can effectively teach it. It also has a link to the role of values that should be expressed in social studies.

The Coverdell World Wise Schools is a program designed by the Peace Corps to help connect students in the United States to developing countries. A classroom can be matched with a Peace Corp volunteer who is actually in country via the internet. Students can dialogue with the volunteer through this connection where they can learn about the culture. World Wise also has offers many other classroom benefits such as an archive of lesson plans.

"The Learning Center" is a website developed and sponsored by The New York Times. The site has links for teacher, students and parents and is designed for grades 3-12 . The link for teachers has many tools for classroom use such as lesson plans, conversation starters, daily news quiz, workd of the day, and discussion topics.

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.

The Holocaust History Project is a website dedicated to presenting information about the Holocaust. The site is an archive of primary sources including letters, essays, photographs, and much more. There is an incredibly compelling text and audio presentation of Heinrich Himmler speech to a secret meeting of a group of SS officers in 1943. Himmler's speech tells part of the story of the Holocaust. Any of the material on this site could be used to support a unit or lesson on the Holocaust. The site also has a "Q & A" section listing all the questions they are received and answered over the years. One can also submit a question on the "Question Form." As an activity, students could develop questions based on research and submit those questions. There are also several Youtube entries that could be used along side the information found on the Holocaust History Project Website. While there are many to select from, I found this one to be quite moving….check it out.on www.youtube.com. The title of the movie is 8. The Holocaust History Project. The movie ends with a sign that states "Think about what you saw."