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Historical currency converter in USD

This is a bit of a comical website but I think it could be a fun way to seem cool to the students, while actually teaching them, covert learning. If your kids are into twitter, you can post these on the board or pass out copies in the beginning of class for a warm-up. I wouldn't have them view the actual site because the comments get a little inappropriate. You would certainly need to use discretion. Sometimes teachers need to seem like real people and if I was in high school, I would think a teacher that used this was cool.

Helpful link if you're looking for information on the Great Depression.

NYT's Celia Dugger examines the quality of education for South Africa's majority black population. 15 years after the election of Nelson Mandela and the official end to apartheid, the nation's school system remains a bastion of inequality.

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.

Historical and contemporary currency converter

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.

C-SPAN's Tocquville page (as promised). Passages from "Democracy in America," a map of the route he traveled, references to his work, lesson plans and more!!

"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.

This has a list of historical landmarks in each state.

The format of this website has changed a bit since I first learned of it over the summer. I don't think it is quite as user friendly as it used to be. However, it does provide some great primary documents for teachers to use when teaching certain moments.... in this case, the lesson I chose was Rosa Parks. By using some of these documents, students can become exposed to a more nuanced interpretation of the bus boycott and the events leading up to it.

You might let them know what you think about their new website design. They might find it helpful.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is significantly more than just a museum and it is arguably the most thorough site on the Holocaust as well as other acts of genocide. Just reviewing the website and all that it offers can take several hours. Through the education filter, teachers can find complete information on how to teach the Holocaust or other acts of genocide. For example, the site offers online lessons, teacher workshops, essential topics, teaching resources, lesson plans, activities, and a list of common student questions. USHMM site suggests 5 guidelines for teaching the Holocaust, which include defining genocide, investigating the context and dynamics that led to genocide, understanding parallels to other genocides and analyzing American and world responses. A function that I find very useful and interesting is the "Mapping Initiative" filter where one can learn how to use Google Earth to view a Darfur Layer file. This file provides comparisons of before and after views of villages impacted by the ongoing events in Darfur. There is also a section of photographs, videos, and testimonies. In addition the USHMM maintains an archive consisting of wide variety of documents including photographs and films. Lastly, if field trips are a possibility, admission is free and there is a special children's exhibit called Remember the Children: Daniel's Story.

Interactive Constitution! Broken down into Preamble, Articles, and Amendments, which are each broken down into the original text, and then if you click different pieces of the text it explains what they mean. You can also search the entire constitution for key words, search by topics, or search by court case

So this web site is a really fantastic way to teach critical reading skills. It appears to be a very real web site to teach about explorers. In actuality, it's a trick. The biographies of the explorers are full of misinformation, like one explorer inventing the cell phone and another having dreams of being an Olympic athlete. It's a fun and interesting way to teach students not to always go with the first thing that they see and not to believe everything they see on the internet.

It seems that modern education has been guided by discipline-based curricula, with each subject separate and divided. This is probably a reflection of specialization and the division of labor of the culture. But why? Can't we have some math and science in an english class? or history class? This is pretty exciting stuff, but also pretty controversial.